Suzanne Paul on ‘rough’ childhood, stepping outside her comfort zone and return to Celebrity Treasure Island

Suzanne Paul has joined this year's Celebrity Treasure Island cast. Photo / TVNZ

From Natural Glow pioneer to TV presenter to infomercial star, at 67, Suzanne Paul has done it all – now, she’s back on our screens with her second stint on Celebrity Treasure Island. Here, she tells the Herald why she jumped at the opportunity to appear on the reality TV series again and reveals the bittersweet secret to her success.

The year was 2003. Suzanne Paul was stranded on Vavaʻu in Tonga alongside Jason Gunn, Marc Ellis, and Louise Wallace to compete on Celebrity Treasure Island. The contestants were evacuated due to a cyclone in the area before Paul was eliminated halfway through the competition.

Looking back on that eventful season, Paul recalls, “I was much younger then, of course. But I don’t think I was any fitter, actually.”

Speaking to the Herald from the shores of Te Whanganui-o-Hei/Cathedral Cove in the Coromandel, the infomercial star says that two decades ago, Treasure Island was a “totally different game” – so what made her say yes to going on the show a second time?

“I keep asking myself the same question,” she laughs. “What was I thinking?”

It’s not really a rhetorical question. As Paul watched recent seasons of the reality show, she was thinking to herself, “I could do that. So I’ve really been thinking about it for about three years.”

Suzanne Paul is declared captain of Team Aihe. Photo / TVNZ

“It just worked out, the timing was right – and also at my age, you’ve got to keep challenging yourself to do something different,” says Paul, whose motto is “success lies one step outside your comfort zone”.

“I just can’t have a life where I’m just like, ‘What am I doing today? Nothing. What challenge have I got? Nothing. What have I got to look forward to? Nothing’.”

Speaking ahead of the show’s premiere, Paul reveals that in an “ageist society”, she wants women in their 60s to see themselves in her when they watch the show.

“Particularly where women are concerned, in the media, they seem to think you hit a certain age and then, like, ‘Whoa, that’s it. Move along now, get the young people in’. And I just want them to see, do you know what, you don’t stop being passionate about things. You don’t stop having energy and being vibrant.

“I want women of all ages, but particularly women in their 60s, [to] go ‘Look at her go. She’s doing this. She’s not worried. She’s giving that a go and she’s trying something different and she’s not worried about it’.”

She’s not worried about her competition - who include athletes, actors and politicians.

“People might have youth on their side, but I want people to see that I’ve got determination and I’ve got grit and I’ve got stamina and I’ve got passion, I’ve got humour.

“It’s not your circumstances that affect you, it’s how you think about your circumstances that affect you. She’s not just happy because she lives in a big house and drives a fancy car. I’ve been happy when I’ve lived in the bedsit and just lived on toast. I’m happy because I choose to be happy.”

Celebrity Treasure Island - Team Aihe. Photo / Matt Klitscher

Paul’s outlook on life is refreshingly positive – but it’s something she learned the hard way. Her mum left when she was little, so Paul was raised in poverty by her father, a factory worker in Wolverhampton in the UK.

“I didn’t have a very good childhood,” she shares.

“It was very rough and I was bullied, and it was just really bad, not having any money – you know, if we hadn’t had school dinners then we wouldn’t have had any food. You know, a jam sandwich, that’s what we had for tea. Other people in the class, they were going on school trips. I couldn’t go on school trips because we couldn’t afford it when I was a child. They used to make me stay behind in the classroom.”

Paul recalls that she couldn’t afford the ingredients for cooking classes at school, so she watched her classmates bake Christmas cakes. Tennis whites and hockey uniforms were too expensive, so she had to sit on the sidelines.

But one particular memory of those days has left a lasting impression on her, decades later.

“This time, the teacher called my name out and I said, ‘Am I going on the trip?’ He said, ‘Yeah, yeah, your name’s on the list, get on the coach’. We were going to some pottery works to see how pottery was made, Yorkshire potteries. I was beside myself with happiness and joy to be going on this trip,” she recalls.

“We all got on the coach. We got to the pottery works and he was ticking our names off on the clipboard, the teacher and as we got there, he went, ‘No, hang on, I made a mistake. You didn’t pay for the trip. You’ll stay here’. And I had to sit in the coach by myself.”

While the other children filed off the bus, a young Suzanne Paul had to stay behind – but one small gesture of kindness turned it all around.

“I didn’t have any food with me. I didn’t have any water, nothing. And - I’ll never forget - the coach driver gave me some of his sandwich.”

It was at that moment that she decided that a life of poverty was not something she wanted for herself.

“I just said, ‘I’m not having this. I want better. I deserve better, I’m going to get better, and I’m determined about it.”

Suzanne Paul wants to show women in their 60s that they're capable of tackling any challenge that comes their way. Photo / TVNZ

Reflecting on those years now, Paul says that her experiences forced her to become self-sufficient. “I didn’t rely on anybody else for money. I didn’t want to rely on anybody else for my happiness. I saw that didn’t work – you know, as a child that didn’t work.”

From clearing tables in a pub as a teenager to working as a sales demonstrator to TV hosting gigs, as she worked, Paul envisioned the life she wanted for herself.

“I think that’s why I was successful, I believed it. I believed in it with all my heart.

“It’s a manifestation, and I didn’t realise that’s what I was doing at the time until probably about 10 years ago. I had it in my mind, I had a list of things that I’ll have. I used to write it down. I’ll have a house on a cliff, I’ll build it looking out to sea, that’ll be nice. I’ll have a sports car. Red sports car, private number plate. I wrote everything down. That’s how I did it.

“And I kept that vision in my mind all the time, and if I would fail at something, it didn’t matter to me. I didn’t care. I say to people, it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve failed, because I’ve only got to succeed once. [I] just keep going, because anything is better than going back to that life.”

It’s that determination that she hopes to bring to the island, acknowledging that the experience can take a toll on contestants both physically and mentally.

“It can mess with your mental health, being in these situations. But I do have a great sense of humour. Everything makes me laugh, I’m happy about a lot of things – so I think I can help us stay strong as a team and individually, and make them realise how lucky and blessed we are.

“I like looking after people and making sure that everybody’s all right. That’s what I want to do – make sure we’re all right.”

Celebrity Treasure Island airs Mondays to Wednesdays at 7.30pm on TVNZ 2 and is available on TVNZ+.

Bethany Reitsma is an Auckland-based journalist covering lifestyle and entertainment stories who joined the Herald in 2019. She specialises in telling Kiwis’ real-life stories, money-saving hacks and anything even remotely related to coffee.