October 9, 2024 • 9 mins
Stace & Azura were lucky enough to catch up and kōrero with the incredibly talented, Honey Hireme-Smiler on the release of her autobiography, Honey My Story of Love, Loss and Victory.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Flavor Podcast Network, The Flavor Breakfast Podcast with Stace
Azarah and Charlie.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Honey My Story of Love, Last and Victory, and it
goes to all those places. It's a brand new book
from Honey, Hit and Mess Smiler with Suzanne mcfahn and
she's in here right now.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Then, Thor had Am, I.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Thank you so much for coming in. Honey Calder, Wow,
you really went there with this book. You were a
little shit, weren't you going out?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
It's probably the best summary that I've heard from anyone
who I was like, Wow, you're challenging.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Wow. I was surprised, you know that you refuge yourself
as a bully because like knowing you, seeing you on TV,
hearing what other people say about you, I literally could
not imagine it.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Well, maybe the Fight for Life showed it, I taking.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
But well that was on a greed, Tim Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It was funny because it probably made me really hesitant
to get in the ring because I had to go
back to being that person and it was was really
awkward for me, especially like I suppose to lead up
to it because I was sparring and you know, there's
not a lot of forty year old women that want
to spare me, so I hate to spy no young girls.
And in the gym, so you know, I'm sparring against
(01:13):
twenty year olds, and I didn't like the feeling of
hitting them. Yeah, but I think once I kind of
got over there, like, I'm not it's a sport, I'm
not hitting them.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
But also you said in the book it's about the
copuppa as well, which got a little bit lost exactly.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yeah, it definitely did.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
And so Fight for Life is actually about the cope
that inspired you.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, and I really felt fatigues during that because you know,
she experienced so much you know, online hate for it,
and it was like, this is exactly why we're doing this.
It's about this mental health, about bullying and all of that.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So, but you talk about your own mental health when
you started commentating for Sky and reading comments, which is
just it's not a good thing, especially because people pick
up on things that you're actually self conscious about.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I think when I first started, all the all the
comments were about my parents, you know, what I was wearing,
what I look like, the makeup, all of the stuff
that I already had my own complexes about. So then
to see it being blown up all over social media
was like far out, like and it was frustrating because
no one was talking about the actual money that I
was doing, you know, and I was still learning it
(02:17):
that as well. But yeah, so it's just something you
kind of don't get used to and you never get
comfortable with. But I learned to not go looking for
it because I started to look for it. But even now,
even with the book coming out, like you know, a
lot of critics already, and I think I mentioned in
the book sometimes obviously I stopped looking for it.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
But then my family go and take me in it.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
That's the thing is like this this this book, truly
it goes to all the places. I mean, I was
cracking out when I read that. Was it you and
your friends or you and your cousins stole your dad's
tractor to drive down to the alcohol store.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I was like, that's that's pretty funny, right there.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Absolutely go down the alcohol still, grab a box, carry
it back, and we're hanging off there.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
You just I don't know how to drive the tractor.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Just to clarify with my dad, and my dad's actually
just discovering this for the book.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
So there's parts of the book I sent my dad
to go over with.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I hadn't seen him that part, so he's learning all
of this stuff that he didn't know what I was
up to as as a teenager.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, I'm interested as to what it took for you
to decide to write this book because love, loss, and victory,
as I say, you really do go deep on all
of those things. So what did it take for you
to decide to write this book?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, I suppose.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I I don't think you ever really prepare how deep
you are going to go. And for a lot of it,
you know, I credit to Susan McFadden, Like, we spent
a whole year working on this book, and a lot
of it was just conversation. So she, you know, we
sort of worked out, you know, what are some of
the key moments of my life, and then we started
to shape the story around that. But it was the
(03:54):
way she questioned and asked me different things that forced
me to remember, to force me. I suppose refeels some
of those things that I'd probably squashed and actually not
thought about because it's like I want to think about that.
That was hard, and so that's why I think it
came out so deep because I was it was all
coming to the surface again. So you know, I talk
about it being a healing journey, but in order to heal,
(04:14):
you actually had to go through it again. And so
for me that was that was really really tough. And
I remember that reading the first draft of the book
like WHOA, Like, man, this is harsh, really harsh. So
again I sent some of the chapters off to my brother,
to my to my dad to sort of like read it,
because when you're reading it inform, it's almost like, oh, man,
this is evidence. People are going to hold me account
(04:37):
to this. So I wanted to ensure that I protected
my faro throughout, you know, throughout what I was writing
in the book.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
But like you said, in a journey of healing, because
when you can mention know, ha ha ha, you were naughty.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
You know, you're a bully.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
But there's a reason for that, because there's some intergeneration
of Mummay. There's things your dad was dealing with and
how he you know, how he turned to alcohol maybe
those kind of things. So so getting that fuck and
getting that agreement, how is that for you as a fan?
Nay was?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
It was challenging and it forced us to have conversations
that we never had as kids, as you know, and
it almost you make when you have to go back
and talk to your parents about stuff that you, you know,
maybe went through as a kid, you fall back into
that child like person. And it was like, I'm not
having a I'm an adult having a conversation with my
(05:25):
dad as an adult, but straight away I fell back
into being a.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Kid, like, oh, it's okay, dad.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
They didn't realize how you even felt at the time
or what you remembered. Because it's it's funny, like, you know,
their version of reality and what they can remember and
not remember is It's interesting because I find, you know,
some of your most traumatic moments, everyone's most traumatic moments,
especially with their parents, they don't remember because they were
under the influence absolutely, So it's like that is just
a story to them.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yeah, and so you're you're so right.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So when I talk about some of those tough times
with the domestic violence, you know, there was like, oh,
I never I never realized, you know, And even my
brother's in the same room when it's all happening, and
he's like, I remembered it.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
When you saw that. Yeah, So it was healing for
our whole fun I think.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
And is that your hope for people reading it too?
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I think right throughout the book. I mean that's one
moment in time, But there's so many challenges I think
that I've faced as young honey, as sports honey, it is,
commentator honey, is all.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Throughout life, wife honey, wife honey.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I And so I think just knowing that, you know,
life throws you so many shitty times, and but these
always hope, You've always just got to keep pushing through it.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Because how do you.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Feel about your life when you look at this? Because
I go, wow, this is an incredible life in a
large line, and in halfway.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Through it, well, it's now telling everybody that I'm forty plus. Yeah,
I'm proud, you know, and it's probably taken me a
long time to admit that.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
The biggest reason I didn't want to write the book
was because I was afraid of.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
What people would think. But actually I don't care.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I like, you know, I don't regret what I've been through.
I've gone through it. I hope people can learn through it,
learn from it. Sorry, and yeah, I'm not ashamed anymore
of that person. Funny story I actually was at the
Farmer's market down in Kittyko on the weekend buying a
coffee and the guy in the coffee shop.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Said, honey, remember me from school and I was.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Like, oh, yeah, I didn't, but anyway, he said, yeah,
you and your brother owned a skateboard. We're at the
skate ramp and potato and you asked to borrow my
skateboard and you just broke it and you laughed and
never never came.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Gosh. I was like, has he said that to me
because he's just read the book or is this for real?
We laughed about it. I said, right, I'm gonna buy
ten coffees on a skateboard. So, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
But that's been cool though, Like it's been cool for
a lot of my childhood friends my community to read
that I've kept it real.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
I haven't haven't been fake about anything.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
You know, And it's so like, I think a lot
of your experiences, even though they are very specific to you,
people can relate to a lot.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Of a lot of what you went through growing up,
but maybe not the victory pat.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
Yeah, people see that, you know, That's what people see
as they see the star, the sports star, the commentator
that you know that there's a really, really, really huge
part of your life that they don't see. And that's
what this book shows is like literally, like you said,
life is throws shit at you all the time.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yeah, you're You're so right.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I think people see our sports stars as these heroes
or heroines, but they don't understand the substance that isn't
behind them.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
And everyone's got that story.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
And I really you're having exactly and you know, a
lot of it is about grief.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
But I just hope that it encourages.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Other sports people just or other wa other Marti to
write their book and tell their story. And I was
literally just having accorded with cruise from Takaidi, you know,
and he's like, oh, I said you should do a book, bro,
And he's like, oh no, I haven't got a story.
I was like, You've got an absolute story. Everybody's got
a story, and I want people to share that. Like
that's that's what we learn from as people sharing these stories.
(09:04):
And we're as Mary, I think we really fuck them about.
You know, we we have this I suppose we worry
about that whole tall poppy syndrome. And sometimes humility gets
in the way. But it doesn't have to, you know,
it's actually people are going to learn from it. And
all the feedback that I've had from the book so
far has been there has been like thank you, thank
you for sharing your story so well they feel.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Seane had All.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I thought that could you know, there's there's healing and
the words, and she's done an amazing job. It's really
easy to read, like good luck trying to stop reading
and so it's honey, this is my story of love,
loss and victory, guns and the bookshop just go.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Oh, she looks good. There go girl.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Then had I thank you.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Want to hear more of Stacy and Charlie.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Catch them weekday mornings from Sex or try there of
the Record podcast
The Flavor Podcast Network, The Flavor Breakfast Podcast with Stace
Azarah and Charlie.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Honey My Story of Love, Last and Victory, and it
goes to all those places. It's a brand new book
from Honey, Hit and Mess Smiler with Suzanne mcfahn and
she's in here right now.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Then, Thor had Am, I.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Thank you so much for coming in. Honey Calder, Wow,
you really went there with this book. You were a
little shit, weren't you going out?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
It's probably the best summary that I've heard from anyone
who I was like, Wow, you're challenging.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Wow. I was surprised, you know that you refuge yourself
as a bully because like knowing you, seeing you on TV,
hearing what other people say about you, I literally could
not imagine it.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Well, maybe the Fight for Life showed it, I taking.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
But well that was on a greed, Tim Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It was funny because it probably made me really hesitant
to get in the ring because I had to go
back to being that person and it was was really
awkward for me, especially like I suppose to lead up
to it because I was sparring and you know, there's
not a lot of forty year old women that want
to spare me, so I hate to spy no young girls.
And in the gym, so you know, I'm sparring against
(01:13):
twenty year olds, and I didn't like the feeling of
hitting them. Yeah, but I think once I kind of
got over there, like, I'm not it's a sport, I'm
not hitting them.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
But also you said in the book it's about the
copuppa as well, which got a little bit lost exactly.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yeah, it definitely did.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
And so Fight for Life is actually about the cope
that inspired you.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, and I really felt fatigues during that because you know,
she experienced so much you know, online hate for it,
and it was like, this is exactly why we're doing this.
It's about this mental health, about bullying and all of that.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So, but you talk about your own mental health when
you started commentating for Sky and reading comments, which is
just it's not a good thing, especially because people pick
up on things that you're actually self conscious about.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I think when I first started, all the all the
comments were about my parents, you know, what I was wearing,
what I look like, the makeup, all of the stuff
that I already had my own complexes about. So then
to see it being blown up all over social media
was like far out, like and it was frustrating because
no one was talking about the actual money that I
was doing, you know, and I was still learning it
(02:17):
that as well. But yeah, so it's just something you
kind of don't get used to and you never get
comfortable with. But I learned to not go looking for
it because I started to look for it. But even now,
even with the book coming out, like you know, a
lot of critics already, and I think I mentioned in
the book sometimes obviously I stopped looking for it.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
But then my family go and take me in it.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
That's the thing is like this this this book, truly
it goes to all the places. I mean, I was
cracking out when I read that. Was it you and
your friends or you and your cousins stole your dad's
tractor to drive down to the alcohol store.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I was like, that's that's pretty funny, right there.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Absolutely go down the alcohol still, grab a box, carry
it back, and we're hanging off there.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
You just I don't know how to drive the tractor.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Just to clarify with my dad, and my dad's actually
just discovering this for the book.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
So there's parts of the book I sent my dad
to go over with.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I hadn't seen him that part, so he's learning all
of this stuff that he didn't know what I was
up to as as a teenager.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, I'm interested as to what it took for you
to decide to write this book because love, loss, and victory,
as I say, you really do go deep on all
of those things. So what did it take for you
to decide to write this book?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, I suppose.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I I don't think you ever really prepare how deep
you are going to go. And for a lot of it,
you know, I credit to Susan McFadden, Like, we spent
a whole year working on this book, and a lot
of it was just conversation. So she, you know, we
sort of worked out, you know, what are some of
the key moments of my life, and then we started
to shape the story around that. But it was the
(03:54):
way she questioned and asked me different things that forced
me to remember, to force me. I suppose refeels some
of those things that I'd probably squashed and actually not
thought about because it's like I want to think about that.
That was hard, and so that's why I think it
came out so deep because I was it was all
coming to the surface again. So you know, I talk
about it being a healing journey, but in order to heal,
(04:14):
you actually had to go through it again. And so
for me that was that was really really tough. And
I remember that reading the first draft of the book
like WHOA, Like, man, this is harsh, really harsh. So
again I sent some of the chapters off to my brother,
to my to my dad to sort of like read it,
because when you're reading it inform, it's almost like, oh, man,
this is evidence. People are going to hold me account
(04:37):
to this. So I wanted to ensure that I protected
my faro throughout, you know, throughout what I was writing
in the book.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
But like you said, in a journey of healing, because
when you can mention know, ha ha ha, you were naughty.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
You know, you're a bully.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
But there's a reason for that, because there's some intergeneration
of Mummay. There's things your dad was dealing with and
how he you know, how he turned to alcohol maybe
those kind of things. So so getting that fuck and
getting that agreement, how is that for you as a fan?
Nay was?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
It was challenging and it forced us to have conversations
that we never had as kids, as you know, and
it almost you make when you have to go back
and talk to your parents about stuff that you, you know,
maybe went through as a kid, you fall back into
that child like person. And it was like, I'm not
having a I'm an adult having a conversation with my
(05:25):
dad as an adult, but straight away I fell back
into being a.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Kid, like, oh, it's okay, dad.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
They didn't realize how you even felt at the time
or what you remembered. Because it's it's funny, like, you know,
their version of reality and what they can remember and
not remember is It's interesting because I find, you know,
some of your most traumatic moments, everyone's most traumatic moments,
especially with their parents, they don't remember because they were
under the influence absolutely, So it's like that is just
a story to them.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yeah, and so you're you're so right.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So when I talk about some of those tough times
with the domestic violence, you know, there was like, oh,
I never I never realized, you know, And even my
brother's in the same room when it's all happening, and
he's like, I remembered it.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
When you saw that. Yeah, So it was healing for
our whole fun I think.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
And is that your hope for people reading it too?
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I think right throughout the book. I mean that's one
moment in time, But there's so many challenges I think
that I've faced as young honey, as sports honey, it is,
commentator honey, is all.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Throughout life, wife honey, wife honey.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I And so I think just knowing that, you know,
life throws you so many shitty times, and but these
always hope, You've always just got to keep pushing through it.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Because how do you.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Feel about your life when you look at this? Because
I go, wow, this is an incredible life in a
large line, and in halfway.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Through it, well, it's now telling everybody that I'm forty plus. Yeah,
I'm proud, you know, and it's probably taken me a
long time to admit that.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
The biggest reason I didn't want to write the book
was because I was afraid of.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
What people would think. But actually I don't care.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I like, you know, I don't regret what I've been through.
I've gone through it. I hope people can learn through it,
learn from it. Sorry, and yeah, I'm not ashamed anymore
of that person. Funny story I actually was at the
Farmer's market down in Kittyko on the weekend buying a
coffee and the guy in the coffee shop.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Said, honey, remember me from school and I was.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Like, oh, yeah, I didn't, but anyway, he said, yeah,
you and your brother owned a skateboard. We're at the
skate ramp and potato and you asked to borrow my
skateboard and you just broke it and you laughed and
never never came.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Gosh. I was like, has he said that to me
because he's just read the book or is this for real?
We laughed about it. I said, right, I'm gonna buy
ten coffees on a skateboard. So, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
But that's been cool though, Like it's been cool for
a lot of my childhood friends my community to read
that I've kept it real.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
I haven't haven't been fake about anything.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
You know, And it's so like, I think a lot
of your experiences, even though they are very specific to you,
people can relate to a lot.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Of a lot of what you went through growing up,
but maybe not the victory pat.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
Yeah, people see that, you know, That's what people see
as they see the star, the sports star, the commentator
that you know that there's a really, really, really huge
part of your life that they don't see. And that's
what this book shows is like literally, like you said,
life is throws shit at you all the time.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yeah, you're You're so right.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I think people see our sports stars as these heroes
or heroines, but they don't understand the substance that isn't
behind them.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
And everyone's got that story.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
And I really you're having exactly and you know, a
lot of it is about grief.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
But I just hope that it encourages.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Other sports people just or other wa other Marti to
write their book and tell their story. And I was
literally just having accorded with cruise from Takaidi, you know,
and he's like, oh, I said you should do a book, bro,
And he's like, oh no, I haven't got a story.
I was like, You've got an absolute story. Everybody's got
a story, and I want people to share that. Like
that's that's what we learn from as people sharing these stories.
(09:04):
And we're as Mary, I think we really fuck them about.
You know, we we have this I suppose we worry
about that whole tall poppy syndrome. And sometimes humility gets
in the way. But it doesn't have to, you know,
it's actually people are going to learn from it. And
all the feedback that I've had from the book so
far has been there has been like thank you, thank
you for sharing your story so well they feel.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Seane had All.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I thought that could you know, there's there's healing and
the words, and she's done an amazing job. It's really
easy to read, like good luck trying to stop reading
and so it's honey, this is my story of love,
loss and victory, guns and the bookshop just go.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Oh, she looks good. There go girl.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Then had I thank you.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Want to hear more of Stacy and Charlie.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Catch them weekday mornings from Sex or try there of
the Record podcast
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