King's week from hell

No porkies ...

BY JONATHAN MARSHALL

EXCLUSIVE: IT'S been a pig of a week for entertainer Mike King. First he helped expose the pork industry he was the poster boy for, then he was slammed by a stack of media commentators.

Well-known comedian King last weekend appeared on TV One current affairs show Sunday in an expose of the industry, including secretly recorded television footage of King and members of an animal rights group forcing their way into a Levin piggery owned by former New Zealand Pork Industry Board chairman and Feilding farmer Colin Kay.

Images of pigs living in small crates shown during the show caused a public outcry.

King's expose came five months after he was dumped by NZ Pork as its TV commercials' celebrity frontman.

While some media commentators applauded King's courage for turning his back on the industry and saying his paid endorsement of it was wrong, others were less complimentary.

Some suggested he should repay the cash he earned from the campaign.

But King last night hit back saying he had "not received one cent" since learning of the confined living conditions to which some pigs were subjected.

He had been told his NZ Pork contract was terminated on Christmas Eve last year.

King refused to say how much the deal was worth but rubbished claims he had been paid $500,000 a year.

"I have been criticised by the media people like Mike Hosking, Marcus Lush, Michael Laws, Deborah Coddington," he said.

"If they knew all along that what I was doing in fronting this campaign was wrong, then why didn't they stand up and say something?"

King said Hosking told listeners on his Newstalk ZB breakfast show he had been offered the contract for the NZ Pork job but turned it down because he knew of poor piggery conditions.

"It is easy for Hosking to turn around and say that now but if he really knew about it then, why didn't he and others use their media heavyweight to defend the pigs?

"Not one person brought this to my attention while I was on TV selling pork, no one."

King said his good friend, radio talkback host Willie Jackson, told him earlier this week he had known all along that pigs were subjected to poor conditions.

But Jackson had not wanted to upset his friend by criticising his endorsement.

King who has publicly admitted he suffers from depression said the week "hasn't been great".

He paid tribute to friends who have supported him through the controversy.

"My fellow depressives, my fellow nutters, they have all helped me," King told Sunday News.

"If I hadn't come out about my depression a few years ago, which made people around me aware of how I cope with things, then I don't think I would have got through this last week."

Ironically, the reason King set about investigating piggery conditions was because he had heard the caged animals suffered depression.

King said despite the criticism, he had no regrets about going public about the pork industry.

"At the end of the day I am not worried about me. I just wanted to make sure the pigs get justice."

But King said next time he was asked to endorse a product, he would do better homework.

"I thought all was good in the hood but I must have been naive."

Hosking could not be reached last night. But Radio Live talkback host Michael Laws said King remained "in the mix of a moral quandary".

"He should now be asking himself what he is going to do with the sizeable amount of money he has generated from encouraging people to buy battery pigs," Laws said.

"I would never do an endorsement unless I knew the product was spot on 100 percent. You end up being tied to your product and the reputation of the product ends up being yours."

Asked why NZ Pork terminated its contract with King, chief executive Sam McIvor told Sunday News: "It was essentially a process we went through with consumer research which suggested to us we take a different approach."

McIvor refused to answer further questions.

- © Fairfax NZ News