New Zealand Woman’s Weekly Issue 15, 2022

It’s a night that will go down in Oscars history – and not just because of the altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock. Ariana DeBose completed her clean sweep of the awards season, adding the Oscar to her very full trophy cabinet for her stunning performance as Anita in West Side Story. The 31-year-old is only the second Latina to win an acting Academy Award, the first being Rita Moreno 60 years ago for the exact same role. A decade after her first nomination, Jessica Chastain, 45, was overjoyed to finally receive the Best Actress gong. And Coda star Troy Kotsur, 53, had the room in tears after becoming the first deaf male actor to win an Oscar. He dedicated the award to “the deaf community, the Coda community, the disabled…

It’s been on our telly for an amazing 45 years and this week we celebrate the people whose faces we came to trust on Fair Go throughout its long history. Our cover star Pippa Wetzell opens up about her 10 years of standing up for the underdog on the consumer rights show, as well as recovering from Covid and getting her kids involved in filming the show from home! Elsewhere, our Weekly columnist Kevin Milne has some hilarious – and one rather frightening – memories of his 27 years working on the popular programme. It’s hard to believe it is just a year since Prince Philip passed away, aged 99. As you’ll remember, due to the global pandemic, there was a pared-back ceremony but last week, with restrictions lifted, the Queen…

‘Out of the blue, he rang just to say he thinks I’m awesome’ Pippa Wetzell has just come out of home isolation after she and her children came down with Covid along with thousands of other New Zealanders in recent weeks. But she looks happy and healthy, and admits she is quite keen to get out to the supermarket after leaving it up to husband Torrin Crowther, who managed to escape the virus. “Our daughter got it first and then we all came down with it,” she tells. “When you have three children, there are just so many more opportunities for the virus to come home. I wasn’t too bad; it felt like a nasty head cold, and it was nice to stay home in bed with it actually, to rest and recover.” For…

It’s a moment that will go down in Oscars’ history. Last week, the A-list crowd was stunned into silence when Will Smith walked on stage in the middle of the ceremony after presenter Chris Rock made an ill-advised joke about his wife Jada’s bald head. As shocked onlookers struggled to understand if it was all an act, when Will returned to his seat, repeatedly yelling, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f***ing* mouth!” they realised it was real. Jada Pinkett Smith, 50, who suffers from alopecia, which causes hair loss due to an autoimmune condition, has talked openly over the past few years about her struggle to come to terms with the loss of her locks. In his later apology to Chris, 57, where he called his outburst “out of line”…

It was a moving, respectful and totally fitting tribute to the late Prince Philip that saw the usually stoic Queen in tears several times. But the memorial service to Her Majesty’s husband, who died last April, was overshadowed by the grieving widow’s decision to give her disgraced son Prince Andrew a prominent role in the proceedings. The monarch’s second son, who no longer carries out official engagements after he was sued for sexual assault by Virginia Giuffre, travelled to the service with the Queen, 95, and walked his mother into Westminster Abbey. They left together afterwards, returning to Windsor rather than attending any of the receptions in Philip’s honour. Royal experts say the Queen’s decision to let Andrew, 62, play a pivotal part would partly have been due to practical considerations – they…

It’s still likely to be a while before King William V is on the throne. But in the last week, we’ve seen the kind of monarch Prince William will be when he takes on the job he was born to do. He had to face up to negativity during his and wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge’s tour of Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas, and the criticism that their visit “harked back to the days of colonialism” has helped to convince the future king that there needs to be a royal revolution with old-fashioned traditions ditched, say palace sources. The backlash has prompted William, 39, to make plans to change the way things are done when he is king. He called crisis talks with his aides on his return to the UK to…