In an update on fellow conspiracy theorist and former bandmate Vinny Eastwood\u2019s online talk show, Te Kahika said he was feeling \u201cpretty bad\u201d and \u201ca bit sore\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey saved my life,\u201d Te Kahika told Eastwood from his hospital bed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually had the heart attack two days ago but I tried to push through it \u2026 I just tried to sleep it off but I tell you what, the Lord looked after me because in my sleep I had this voice saying when you wake up you\u2019ve got to go to hospital straightaway.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Northland-based lay preacher, also known as Billy TK, said he went to a district hospital and had an electrocardiogram (ECG) scan.<\/p>\n
Billy Te Kahika is recovering in Auckland after suffering a heart attack. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n
He said he was told by a doctor \u201cyour heart is not good\u201d, before being flown to Auckland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of thought of myself as a bit bulletproof for a long time and in the back of my mind I thought maybe something will catch up with me with the stress of the court cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in wicked pain but I feel very grateful to not have gone to sleep just yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Son of accomplished blues musician Billy Te Kahika snr, he rose to national prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic as an outspoken purveyor of fringe theories such as anti-vaccination and the dangers of 5G.<\/p>\n
Te Kahika and Eastwood were jailed in March 2023 for illegally organising and attending a protest in front of TVNZ headquarters on the first day of the nationwide Covid Delta-variant lockdown.<\/p>\n
He later tried to leverage the popularity he gained from the undercurrent of discontent on social media during the pandemic into a brief, unsuccessful political career as co-leader of the Advance NZ Party ahead of the October 2020 election.<\/p>\n
His attempt at political influence failed when Advance NZ received about 1% of the nationwide party vote, while he also lost in his bid for the Te Tai Tokerau electorate.<\/p>\n
His behaviour during the campaign caught the attention of the Electoral Commission and he was later found guilty of failing to declare candidate donations, failing to keep records of a donation and failing to keep records of expenses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an update on fellow conspiracy theorist and former bandmate Vinny Eastwood\u2019s online talk show, Te Kahika said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,89,51,17466,19956,2199,177347,81317,12513,2862,2241,78,3038,262114,65041,111,43,139,69,18154,26884,43211,8690,179912],"class_list":["post-531126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-attack","tag-auckland","tag-billy","tag-candidate","tag-city","tag-conspiracy","tag-covid19","tag-failed","tag-heart","tag-hospital","tag-in","tag-jnr","tag-kahika","tag-musician","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-political","tag-recovering","tag-suffering","tag-te","tag-theorist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531126","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=531126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}