NZ PM Jacinda Ardern and Clarke Gayford are engaged to be married
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her longtime partner are engaged.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her longtime partner are engaged.
Ms Ardern, 38, and TV fishing show host Clarke Gayford, 42, got engaged over Easter, a spokesman for her office confirmed yesterday.
He could not reveal whether a date for the prime ministerial nuptials had been set or who had proposed to whom. “I can’t say anything about it other than they are engaged and it happened over Easter,” the spokesman said.
Ms Ardern said in an interview last year she would not propose to Gayford, even though she regards herself as a feminist.
“I want to put him through the pain and torture of having to agonise about that question himself,” she told the BBC.
Ms Ardern met Gayford in 2012 and their first child, Neve, was born in July. She become only the second prime minister in the world to give birth while in office and took the infant onto the floor of the UN Assembly in New York. Since the birth, Gayford has been a stay-at-home father.
The engagement comes after a trying time for Ms Ardern, who has been widely praised for her response to the March 15 Christchurch mosque shootings.
News of the engagement broke after journalists noticed Ms Ardern wearing a diamond ring while carrying out her duties yesterday. There have been at least two false alarms in the past when she has been seen sporting bling on her ring finger. On both occasions she quashed the speculation, saying she had to constantly swap rings between fingers on her left hand due to eczema.
Ms Ardern was at Pike River where 29 men were trapped and killed underground following an explosion on November 19, 2010.
Their bodies have never been recovered. The re-entry process to recover them has begun but is now facing delays.
AFP, AP
Natalie and I extend our congratulations to the PM and Clarke on their engagement.
— Simon Bridges (@simonjbridges) May 3, 2019
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