Mayor expects to be 'stitched up' in TV interview
“I’ve watched all his recent [programmes] that he’s done, and nobody comes out of that good."
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Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark believes he will be “stitched up” and “trashed” when an episode of New Zealand Today airs on television on Thursday night.
Comedian Guy Williams and other staff from the New Zealand Today programme travelled to Invercargill last year to interview Clark.
The primary focus was on Clark’s use of the N-word while he tried to make a point about art during a speech in March last year.
In promos to the programme, Guy Williams says he was in Invercargill interviewing the country’s “worst mayor”.
Clark said the interview lasted about an hour and half.
“His primary focus was to trap me on the N-word, and he wasn’t able to do that. I signed a non-disclosure [agreement] before the interview that allowed them to cut and paste, so you can only imagine what the cutting and pasting will be.
“At the end [of the interview], he was highly elevated, and he said to me, ‘this is the most difficult interview I’ve ever done’. Because I just wouldn’t play ball with him.
“I said, ‘look, if you are worried about the N-word, spell it out, say it’. It took me about 20 minutes to get him to do that.
“I said to him, ‘do you expect to lose your job in the media now because you’ve used the N-word’? Because I had pressure on me to resign as Mayor because I used it.”
Clark said the context of him using that offensive word was to ask what is acceptable in art and what is not.
The Invercargill Mayor said he had always been confident taking on interviews and was happy to talk with Williams last year to clarify his use of the N-word.
However, Clark said when he got into the interview, he realised it was more about Williams himself than the interview topic.
“I’ve watched all his recent [programmes] that he’s done, and nobody comes out of it that good.
“I would say I’ll be trashed in it, but hey, I’ve got broad shoulders. I’ll be judged on the outcomes for the city. If someone wants to judge me on a TV programme or my stand on co-governance, so be it.”
During Williams’ trip south last year to interview Clark, the New Zealand Today crew also made a trip to Ohai where they put together an episode on residents of the town who were in search of retirement coal.
That episode has already screened.
“When he was struggling to get them wound up, which they weren’t, he started talking about milking bulls,” Clark said.
“I like a bit of slapstick humour, but gee, where did that come from.”
The latest New Zealand Today episode, featuring Invercargill’s mayor, will screen on TV3 at 8.30pm on Thursday.
It will also be available on its ThreeNow streaming service.
Maybe he shouldn’t of said what he said! Maybe just said it as “the N word” instead of saying it 😐.
I can not wait for this awful term to be finished.