Paul Henry had plenty of kind words for his friends, family and TV3 co-workers during his tearful farewell speech on live TV this morning.
But he saved one final crack at his former co-star, Hilary Barry, till the very end.
Barry was a newsreader on Paul Henry for a yearbefore she defected to opposing network TVNZ, and began fronting the competing morning news show Breakfast in September.
Rumours of bad blood between the pair began when Barry took a swipe at Henry on Breakfast over his controversial interview in which he commented on a woman's "perfect titties".
"Can I say how lovely it is for me to work with three such kind, caring men, so respectful of women," she told her male co-stars on Breakfast.
"What have they told you so far? And I'm talking about you, as a viewer. They have told you that they have been perfectly happy to produce shit for all this time because no one has put them under pressure to produce anything other than shit," he said.
"And the reason we know that is the fact that they just offloaded the shit. Unceremoniously, they have offloaded the shit."
But Henry had the final word this morning when he paid tribute to newsreader Ingrid Hipkiss, who replaced Barry when she left in May.
He told her he wished she'd been on Paul Henry "from the very beginning".
"Just a couple of very quick words from me," Henry said.
"Ingrid thank you so much, you've been here for the last year. I wish you'd been here from the very beginning, you've been absolutely stunning and you have really embraced this and it's been an absolute pleasure working with you."
Henry signed off this morning's broadcast thanking his mum, Olive, who died on Monday after a long illness.
