{"id":138866,"date":"2025-11-17T03:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T03:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/138866\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T03:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T03:43:10","slug":"labour-leader-chris-hipkins-reveals-engagement-to-partner-toni-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/138866\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour leader Chris Hipkins reveals engagement to partner Toni Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"

The relationship went public on election night in 2023<\/a>, when Hipkins was thanking his parents and children for their support during the campaign. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is someone else I want to thank tonight, someone that most of you won\u2019t know, and that is my partner, Toni<\/a>,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The announcement initially caused some confusion, with many questioning whether it was Toni or Tony (Hipkins later clarified she was a woman). <\/p>\n

He went on to say in October 2023<\/a> he had not meant to \u201ctrigger that set of rumours\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Toni with an \u2018i\u2019,\u201d he chuckled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve known each other for a long time, we met some time ago and our lives sort of went in different directions \u2013 there was a period where we didn\u2019t have any contact with each other and then we got back in touch this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he had talked with her before he revealed the relationship to the country.<\/p>\n

Earlier that year, after becoming Prime Minister, Hipkins publicly revealed he had separated from his then-wife, the mother of his two children. <\/p>\n

Hipkins said he and his then-wife had decided about a year prior to \u201clive separately\u201d in a decision he described as being \u201cin the best interest of our family\u201d. He stated at the time she was \u201cstill my best friend\u201d and the pair remained \u201cincredibly close\u201d. <\/p>\n

The explanation, which he characterised as his \u201cfinal comment on the matter\u201d, formed part of his plea to New Zealanders to respect the privacy of his wife and two children. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs a member of Parliament and as a public figure, I\u2019ve worked really hard in the time that I\u2019ve been in politics to keep my family out of the public limelight,\u201d Hipkins said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want [my children] to grow up with a typical, Kiwi-kid life. I want them to be able to make mistakes, I want them to be able to learn and to grow without five million people looking over their shoulder, so I intend to keep them out of the public limelight. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know that putting my name forward to be a minister, to be an MP, to be the Prime Minister, I make myself public property. I absolutely accept that, but my family aren\u2019t and I ask that people do respect that.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The relationship went public on election night in 2023, when Hipkins was thanking his parents and children for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3276,6095,2004,2740,5912,42,13480,6721,13489,6722,43,5502,415,1517,61,49953,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-138866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-chris","tag-engaged","tag-engagement","tag-former","tag-grace","tag-headlines","tag-hipkins","tag-labour","tag-leader","tag-minister","tag-news","tag-partner","tag-prime","tag-reveals","tag-to","tag-toni","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}