“I’ve 100% lost the love of my life, which is hard – you only have one, right?” she told the Herald. “I’m fully broken. I can’t even describe it.”
Radio host Andrew Leiataua and Leanne Hall. “He called me honey all the time, and I called him honey.”
Leiataua’s death at home on Saturday, from a cardiac event, has also devastated his family, friends, More FM colleagues and many others across the broader radio industry.
Leiataua was a Kiwi radio legend – starting at 89FM in Auckland in 1988, before stints at Oasis FM and Kiss FM in Taupō, and 89X in Auckland. He then spent more than 30 years at More FM, firstly in Auckland as the nights host and the last 20 in Taupō as the breakfast announcer.
At last year’s New Zealand Radio Awards, he was recognised for his outstanding services to broadcasting.
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Many in the Taupō community are also in mourning, with hundreds of messages of love and support for his family coming from local businesses and individuals, including police, civil defence, McDonald’s and charities such as Kids Greening Taupō.
While Leiataua spent a career in the public eye (and ears) and became one of Taupō’s most recognisable faces through his radio show and community work, Hall – herself a well-known real estate agent in town – describes a fiercely private man.
“His whole world was around his kids, and I – family was the centre of everything. Most people in Taupō don’t even know where we live. They know the area, but not the address, because we just really keep to ourselves, which is nice when we’re both in the public face all day long.”
‘A full love story’
Hall and Leiataua’s story began on New Year’s Eve in 1993, when a mutual friend, who worked at More FM, introduced them over a radio lunch at Victoria Park Market in Auckland.
Hall says it was love at first sight.
After lunch, and after spending the afternoon discreetly questioning their mutual friend about Leiataua, Hall discovered he had been doing the same about her.
The pair caught up again later that evening and saw in the New Year inside the radio studio, where Leiataua was on air.
They had their first date the next evening at a picnic spot overlooking St Heliers and have rarely been apart since. “We were just joined at the hip. It was seriously love at first sight. There was never any question.”
The pair have two children – Kyzsana, now 30, and Bronson, 27.
Radio host Andrew Leiataua, Leanne Hall and their children, left, Kyzsana, now 30, and Bronson, 27, second from right.
“He called me honey all the time, and I called him honey,” Hall says. “When our daughter was little, she went into daycare one day – she was about 3 – and they had to do a story on the family. She said, ‘my Mum’s name is Leanne and my Dad’s name is Honey’. For years, she thought it was Honey.”
Hall said she was attracted to Leiataua’s humility, deep family values and an ability to listen. “He had this really intense stare. When you talked to him, you could tell he was actually listening. He’d let you talk. He wouldn’t step in.”
He could command a crowd of thousands as an event MC, she said, then return home as the humble man who loved karaoke – Elvis Presley, Ronan Keating and 80s music among the go-tos – terrible dad jokes, picnics and romantic com movies.
His own romantic streak continued throughout their three decades together.
Only a few weeks ago, the pair were on holiday in Fiji. At sunset one evening, Leiataua positioned their chairs towards the horizon, put an earbud in Hall’s ear and another in his own and played a playlist of music they had loved when they first met.
Later, armed with champagne and another playlist, the pair staged their own dance party on their hotel balcony. “He was such a romantic,” Hall said.
Although widely referred to as husband and wife, they never formally married. Leiataua bought her a wedding band during an early More FM trip to Hong Kong, with fellow host Jeremy Corbett helping him choose it.
The children came along – small miracles in themselves after Hall had been told she might not be able to have kids – and a wedding ceased to matter. “We never put us first. It was always about the kids,” Hall said. “It’s a really beautiful love story and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Family dinners were non-negotiable, whatever the competing demands of work. Sundays were protected as family time.
Leiataua celebrated his children’s ambitions and achievements and was Hall’s greatest champion as her own career grew – initially as an executive assistant in Auckland, before moving into property management and ultimately as a successful real estate agent.
He helped with her marketing, branding, social media and videos and quietly blocked out time in her diary for the couple when life became too busy. “He was honestly my best supporter in everything in life,” she said.
That devotion extended across Taupō.
Andrew Leiataua had been with More FM for more than 30 years.
Leiataua did not just promote community causes on air. He raised money, delivered food, mowed a neighbour’s lawn and collected the kids or their friends in the middle of the night when they needed a safe ride home.
“When he said, ‘Please call us anytime if you need anything’, he actually meant it,” Hall said.
The public response to his death has stunned the family. With Leiataua back at home this week, Hall said a constant stream of visitors had been paying their respects. Their lounge resembled a florist shop.
She and the children always knew Leiataua was loved and respected, but hadn’t understood the depth of feeling for him.
“It’s not until something like this happens that you sit back and go, ‘Wow’. We just had no idea people felt that way.”
More FM, she said, had been “incredible”, describing the station and its people as another family.
A celebration of Leiataua’s life will be held on Saturday – Hall knows the scale of the event would have made her fiercely private partner uncomfortable.
“I can hear him in my head going, ‘Honey, no’,” she said. “But sometimes we just have to, honey, because the community needs this. They need the time to grieve. As a family, we’re grieving as well.”
Hall recalled leaving for work last Saturday morning. Leiataua was editing videos for her real estate work in their home office when she kissed him on the forehead.
He stood, hugged her and said: “Bye, honey. Love you. Have a good day.”
It was a ritual repeated every day. “Everywhere we went, he’d hold my hand,” she said. “Every single day.”
Perhaps their inseparability is best captured in the family photographs now being gathered for Saturday’s tribute.
Hall can find remarkably few pictures of Leiataua alone. “Because every photo of Andrew, I’m in it.”
Andrew Leiataua will be honoured this Saturday at the Great Lake Centre, Taupō. Doors open at 12pm with a service starting at 12.30pm.
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Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.