For Māori activist and Arts Laureate Tāme Iti, his time on Celebrity Treasure Island may have been shorter than expected - but he hoped it helped inspire his generation.
In an emotional fifth episode on Tuesday, Iti made the decision to leave the show early, but not before a heartfelt speech to his Tohorā teammates – leaving few both on and off-screen with dry eyes.
“Kei te pai, I’m here in your hearts just in my ā-tinana. I’m going home,” he said on the beach to his active audience.
“It was hard. I really wanted to stay on,” he told Stuff of his departure from the series.
“The whole event was fun, exciting,” he said, and pointed out it’s pretty rare to get thrown into a situation and told, “you’ve got a bowl of rice and some beans, and that’s it”.
For Iti, the decision to leave followed on from an earlier episode where an obstacle challenge found him bleeding and sore. He was also conscious of his diabetes, which he had not been on medication for in years.
“I had a mamae leg ... You keep forgetting you’re 71,” he said.
“My kids did warn me, remind me, ‘if you don’t feel good there, we want you to say something’.”
And ultimately, he was sore and, “I couldn’t carry on”.
The night before he walked away from Wānaka and the show, he sat down for a kōrero with his Tohorā teammates. The following day, “right at the last minute ... nah, it’s time for me to move”.
As an active 71-year-old, Iti joked he’s not “totally helpless. I’m pretty mobile” but said his kids are always “making sure I’m OK”.
“I keep reminding them, ‘I’m OK, my boys’.”
Despite an early departure for the Aotearoa icon many tipped as a shoo-in for the win, Iti said while he got to know the fellow contestants over a short period of time: “It seems like I’ve known them forever”.
He rarely watches television, and didn’t know who many of his island-mates were when he arrived but it didn’t take long to make friends – and figure out who everyone was.
“You see people on the screen, but if you see them in real life you kind of have to look twice.”
And once the formalities were done with, “we’re in business”.
While Iti quickly became a favourite for those on and off the screen, before the 2023 contestants were announced, few people would have had him on their list of likely faces to join the island. But he’d fielded plenty of requests for shows and appearances in the past – such as Dancing With the Stars – that he’d rejected.
“I thought about it and, nah, not me ... I didn’t want to be seen falling off the floor ... or can’t do the twists,” he joked.
With Celebrity Treasure Island, though, it was for a good cause – raising money and awareness for Mike King’s I am Hope charity – a cause, “dear to my heart”. He spoke about it with his children and, “this one, I took it”.
He may not have raised money but he hoped his time on the show highlighted the charity and continued the conversation about suicide and, “why there is a need for support for people there to be able to make a phone call to somebody, so they can live another day”.
“There is hope there for people.”
Iti hoped his time on Celebrity Treasure Island has motivated people – particularly men of his own generation - to be active both mentally and physically.
And to show people a glimpse of the real Tāme Iti.
“The media over a long period of time created an image – what’s up with that Tāme Iti – activist ... radical, and all that ... There’s more to it than that.”
He said he’s a firm believer that, “we need to overcome our own egos and our assumptions about ... our culture, our language, who we are”.
“It’s really important we build up a relationship ... Let’s do some magical stuff together.”