She agreed that only left National and Labour as possibilities.
“They’re sort of central-ish rightish”, Gillespie said of National.
She argued the two major parties are “the same, just different wording”, but would not reveal who she was leaning toward.
“Although I did see what everybody had to go through, with the local elections and you know, people had their billboards up and everything, I thought, ‘God, I don’t have the money to buy giant billboards’,” she joked.
Gillespie posted on social media in August that she had met with a representative of a political party to discuss her campaign.
“I had a meeting today about possibly running in next year’s general election,” she wrote in the post.
“On the bus I contemplated what I might say in the meeting. Something like, ‘Polly. Great name for a politician?’ No.”
She shared little about the meeting itself but said she had joked about herself door-knocking before an election, comparing herself to Hugh Grant’s character in Love Actually.
While she didn’t say which party she met with, she confirmed it was not NZ First and concluded the post with; “politics is rough.”
Gillespie became a household name from her radio shows with ex-husband Grant Kereama.
The Polly & Grant ZM breakfast show ran from 1991 to 2014 before they moved to The Hits.
The pair subsequently hosted shows on More FM and TodayFM before its closure in 2023, which catapulted her career change.
Gillespie is now focusing on mental health advocacy and has retrained as a therapist and counsellor since the end of her regular broadcasting slot.
Ethan Manera is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz.
Grace Symmans is a producer for Newstalk ZB’s Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills.
