February 16, 2025 • 23 mins
K'Lee (Kaleena Renae McNabb, born 1984) is a New Zealand pop singer who rose to fame in the early 2000s with hits like "Broken Wings" and "Can You Feel Me?" Her debut album, released in 2002, peaked at No. 4 in New Zealand. After a 10-year break, she returned in 2012 with the single "Tables Have Turned."
In addition to her music career, K'Lee worked as a popular radio host on Flava FM and Mai FM for 13 years. She also appeared on TV shows like Celebrity Treasure Island and Dancing with the Stars NZ.
K'Lee, of Scottish and Māori descent, survived a gang-related shooting and a kidnapping in Los Angeles. She is now married to health promoter Lama Saga and has three children.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection, It's Real Life with John Cowan
on News Talk s ed B.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Gooday, welcome to real Life. I'm John Cowner. My guest
tonight was incredibly successful as a pop an, R and
B singer, and along with a lot of other things
in her life, she's had a great career now in radio.
Kaylee McNabb, Welcome, Kayleie. It's great to have you in real.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Life, Yoda. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
And your world just keeps on spinning and going on,
and there's new stuff happening all the time. You know,
when I thought, when I was told, you know, how
are you going to be interviewing Kaylee? I thought, Okay,
we'll talk about a pop career from say twenty years ago.
And then and then I started looking what else you've
done and just in the last six months, I mean,
we could fill up the whole show just talking about that.
For instance, baby number.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Six, Yes, yes, yes, I just had a baby.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
He's seven months now, yeah, little Maker, and he is
an absolute dream. He's such a beautiful baby and we're
really really lucky, and I think I was lucky this
time to make it to thirty four weeks, especially after
the rigamarole I've had with my previous daughter. And so, yeah,
he's absolutely beautiful. And yeah, I mean my husband are
(01:38):
playing tag team at the moment as I do breakfast
on Flavor and I do Breakfast Radio, and you know,
we're making a work.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
We make it work. It's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Oh, that's great, that's great. You mentioned some difficulties with pregnancies,
and I was reading about your struggles with Honor. Isn't
it your daughter? And she was how many weeks when
she was born?
Speaker 4 (01:57):
She was so my waters broke at twenty three weeks.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
That'd be concerning.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Yeah, yeah, it was quite I mean, once we got
over the excitement, oh we could have a baby, we thought,
hold on, this is actually quite scary because the things
that the doctors were telling us, we almost already we
were like, Okay, this is not as exciting.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
As we should be, and this is actually really scary.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
And there was a huge it was actually a really
morbid chat every day for about six weeks until I
got to thirty weeks, and I didn't actually make it
to the full thirty weeks. So I got to twenty
nine and four and she decided to come. She is
really really strong and healthy, but the first two years
of her life were very, very, very difficult.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
She got or something and then.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Yeah, she almost died three times RSV. Like you said,
the common cold, pneumonia, yeah, just in rhinovirus, yeah, you
name it. She would catch it and we would end
up in hospital on the respirator and oxygen and we'd
be back at square one every single time. It was
(03:08):
really a testing and trying time for our family.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
But you know, we persevered, and you've got a healthy
little girl now.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Oh she is feisty. She is healthy, She is headstrong
and independent, and you look at her and you think
she wasn't this little girl that was gasping for life.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
You know, that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, she is now.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
One of the things that I do recall reading about
that time was that you had mention your trust, your faith,
your prayers at that time.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Yeah, I think that was probably the It wasn't the
first time that I'd really dug deep into my faith,
but at one of the most important times that I
really just had to really stop and just really hand
it over to God and just be like, please, I
really need you to really just keep her in, don't
(03:56):
let her come out. Let these doctors do their magic
and stop my labors from happening. And then I managed
to keep her in until we're twenty nine weeks. And
you know, if you think about it, this, I went
in in the hospital in December before Christmas twenty first,
I think it was I had her seventh of February.
(04:16):
We didn't leave the hospital until May, and then four
months later we were back in hospital, you know, praying
for her life again. So it just goes to show that,
you know, it was a huge trust in God's direction
and where he was taking us. And I had loads
of loads and loads of our friends in far No.
(04:38):
We had prayer communities around Auckland, around New Zealand, praying
for our little girl and for her to be strong
enough to leave the hospital at several different times, and
we would play music. We would play gospel music, you know,
and it was just such a really beautiful time in
my life where I really just I really lent into
(05:00):
that faith that I had and my husband's as well.
And I think it wasn't until then we hadn't really
been open with each other about where our own personal
faith were. And as we came into that situation, even
Honor being our fifth child together where it was probably
the first time that we actually held hands and we
(05:21):
prayed over her together, you know, and we really just
you know, took away, it took away all the walls,
the barriers on what each other believed and how each
other were brought up, and we just really leant into
that and we trusted God had had us, had our family,
had our relationship, and had our daughter. And it was
(05:43):
a beautiful and it is a beautiful moment, and it
is a beautiful journey, and it still continues on. You know,
we're ever so grateful, which she just celebrated her fourth birthday,
and you know, we've got a cake for her at
home and at dinner. You know, our children do cut
a care and they're thanking God for Honor's health and
for Honor for being here. So you know, it's still
(06:06):
an ongoing thing that we continue to give praise for.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
How you've drawn other people into that as well. I
think I read a story about some doctors coming at
you have a great, big needle. I think a lot
of people would pray if I see a doctor coming
at them with a big needle, that you got him
to pray.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
So with number six, Micah, I ended up. I was
thirty four weeks and I went into labor. I had
been sitting in hospital for a couple of weeks already, yep.
And my labor started and he was stuck right into
my ribs, and because he was so small, I wasn't
able to give birth to him naturally. They had to
(06:47):
get him out as soon as possible. So they rushed
me straight forward, bumped me right into the front of
the line to go in and to have a sea section.
And I get there and you know, all the doctors
are setting up, the nurses are sitting up, and I'm thinking,
oh my gosh, I'm doing this again. This is the
second time I've had to go for a sea section.
And I was like, oh, please, please please. So they
(07:10):
get me ready in the gown. I got my my
husband and his little scrubs and everything. He's got the
things on the nurses there, and I just looked at him.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
And I said, can we do a cut? A care?
Speaker 4 (07:23):
So we're in there and the nurse is standing there
with us, and she's allowing us to do this, and
at the end she says Amen. I don't know if
she's Christian, god fearing or whatever. I'm like, thank you,
thank you so much for allowing us to do that
or God. We go rolling into the theater and I
see this man standing there and I see this big
ass needle sitting on the table and he's doing all
(07:45):
these tests and stuff, and he's putting the getting the
IV ready and stuff. And he's like, okay, okay, you're
gonna sit on the end of the bed. Grab a
hold of the pillow. And I was like, whoa, wa
wa wa, whoa.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Just just hold up folk, like maybe two minutes.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Look, you're Maldy. I'm Maldy. I just I need to
ask God to be in this room with us right now.
I want my baby. We didn't know if it was
a boy or girl. I was like, I just want
my baby to be healthy and I need to be
able to survive this.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Yeah, you know, I didn't know what they were going
to do.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
It's harder the second time round when you have a
C section, and the third, fourth, first anytime after that.
So I just wanted to be you know thing. I said,
do you mind if maybe we do a cut of care?
And he was like, oh, of course, of course.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
He took his head off, he took his little scrub
head off and he was like right there.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
And my husband led us in a cut of care
and everything and at the end he goes, oh, Calda,
you know, ready to go, and I you know, it
just it's amazing how just a little prayer, just a
little belief and a little ask of you know, divine intervenure.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
It's interesting that you're saying this is perhaps not the
first time, but it is something a bit of a renaissance.
I mean, for a lot of people, face sort of
sometimes trails off a little bit as people get older
and it's more cynical and everything like this, but yours
sounds like it's it's developing.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, yeah, I would say there, yeah, yeah, I would
definitely say that.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
And I think the more that I learned to trust
in you know, God and what He's got planned for me,
then the more that I get to see the beauty
in what I actually have around me. And I think
that's the that's the that's the essence of it, because
then you're not shrouded by they have and have not
looking at other people's relationships, families, jobs, going why don't
(09:33):
I have that?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Why don't Why am I not getting that? Why am
I not doing this?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
You know?
Speaker 4 (09:37):
And you start to look inwards, and you go, where
is my where's my love? Where's my faith? Where's my gratitude,
where's my appreciation?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
You know? Where Where am I am I?
Speaker 4 (09:48):
You know?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Happy?
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Am I grateful for the things that I have around me?
And you start to take notice of all the great
things that you have around you, and therefore you start going, actually,
I'm I'm good.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
I'm happy. God's got me. Life is good.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
If you've just tuned in. My guest tonight is Kaylee McNabb,
who has a career and music and a radio star
and on Flavor Breakfast host on Flavor Now.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, I'm a big fruit salad of talent.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
We'll carry on this conversation after this break. This is
real life on news talks. It'd be.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on news talks.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
It be.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
These broken way.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
That the soul. Of course you remember it. Of course
you remember it.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Open up letters just in case you thought, just in
case yeah, I mean it was.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
It was like twenty one plus years ago. Everyone's like, wow,
you can still sing like that. Well, I haven't actually
stopped singing.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Oh that's great, that's very good to hear, now, Kayleie,
that was you singing in two thousand and one. And
looking back at the YouTube videos and which I've had
a lot of fun doing, going back over your music
and videos and things, and there's this incredibly mature, poised performer.
And then I look in the night notes and you
are sixteen. Yeah, yeah, sixteen. How does a sixteen year
(11:26):
old get on to that level of success? Because that
was number two, and then your album came out and
it was in the top top lists for.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
What's seven your top ten album it was I think
it was number four.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I think the most of number three. Four.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Anyhow, you had a great career there with I think
four top ten hits and things. Sixteen, you're still at school.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Or credit to Matty J. Matty J. Rise, Yes, yeah,
or credit to him.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
He obviously his amazing air for music and an incredible writer,
incredible producer. He's still producing and writing to this day
as he travels and lives around the world abroad okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Good to give them some everything like that, but you
had the voice.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Well, look, my my Cord always used to tell me,
but make sure you have great stories to tell your grandchildren.
Go and live a life. Life is for the living.
And my grandmother, she always used to tell me, what
is the point of not doing trying something if you've
never tried it before. You can't say no to something
(12:33):
if you haven't already tried it before.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Is this the grandma that just died recently? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
one of the jays of you. I noticed it in
my quarter as well.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Yeah, and so I just I've always I've always just
taken life like that. Then, you know, make sure I
have great stories to tell my grandchildren, to tell my
children to.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Tell you guys, well, what of these videos that I've
been looking at that you wasn't a long Bethel's beach
and in a land cruiser and things with a whole
lot of people in bikinis and dancing in caves and
bonfires and stuff like that. At sixteen, that must have
you must have been thinking this is such a buzz all.
You're thinking this is actually hard work.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Oh no, no, it was all fun. It was totally.
It was totally fun. It's totally fun. Yeah, waking up
at four am in the morning and having a you know,
twenty two hour shoot. It was all fun, especially when
you're getting smoked out by putting bonfires and the bath
in the cave and trying to quickly get the shots
and that you needed to before the cave filled up
with water.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Oh an increasing video.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Oh no, well it actually did in the end, and
we ended up having to vacate the cave, but we
had shot all the shots by then. No, doing the
video clips and doing the tours, getting to tour with
amazing artists like at Pink Cypress, hell, you know Missy Elliott, Shaggy, Yeah,
just to name a few, like great, great, great memories,
(13:55):
great some. I forget that I've done that kind of stuff.
I actually forget that I've done all of that.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Now at sixteen, you want a typical sixteen year old,
because you've been playing in clubs and bars and things,
are you. Yeah, the fast far the button.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Well, I wasn't going there to drink that alcohol, that's
for sure.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
No, no, no, So I had to fudge a little
and say that I was, you know, seventeen and that
I was, indeed, you know, old enough to go and
you know play in these bars. Wasn't drinking obviously, so
I just wanted to go and play. I just wanted
to go and sing, So I was jamming with live bands.
It wasn't until my PE teacher saw me and was like,
(14:36):
what are you doing in this bar? I was sir,
I'm jamming with the band, and he was like, you
better be at school for PE tomorrow and I need
that assessment.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I was like, right, yeah about that.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Now, there's also some grittiness in those songs and talking
about being cheated on by your boyfriend and things. Now
I want to come back to that because you just
got married recently. Yeah, and it looked like a wonderful wedding.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
And finally, finally.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Well that's the thing. You have been with Lama eleven years,
you have four babies together, you'd and modern couples can
enjoy life together without a wedding ceremony. What was it
about formal marriage that says something about what you want
your relationship to be or is or or whatever. Why'd
(15:24):
you decide after eleven years together to get married?
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Well, I mean, yeah, we've been together for eleven years.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
We were engaged for seven.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Okay, so we actually got engaged after we came out
of that first lockdown and I found out that I
was pregnant. So those kind of things kind of hindered
actually going forth with a wedding. And at first he
had things that he wanted to achieve, and so I
had just given up by their Now, marriage.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Has always been on the agenda for you.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
No, No, I actually never wanted to get married. Really, no, No, is.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
That because you had had some cyings and you had
been stomped around, you know, your hard had been stopped on.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Well, you know, they're actually my older two children.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
The relationship to their father that was a really horrific
relationship and it was quite physical and mental and emotionally
you know, abusive, and so coming out of that, I
was just quite happy just to you know, be with
someone who made me happy and just didn't have any
(16:33):
type of like full on, you've got to be here,
I've got to be here.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
It's a contract.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
And then we had a child and then we're like, okay,
we're really doing this. This is actually like we're actually
in this now, you know, we're tied to each other.
Then we decided to have another child, and it kind
of got to the point where the kids we've been
asking us, and I had to actually think about to myself,
like what did marriage actually mean to me? And at
(16:59):
that point, it meant the unity of our family together
because we are a blended family. And like all props
to my husband, he has been my rock and actually
the person who's really showed me that this is actually
what a relationship is, this is what love is. And
(17:19):
my notion of what love was before that. I mean,
as you can tell from all the songs like one
plus one, it's it's cynical, yeah, yeah, and it was
very I guess at that point where I don't need
a man.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
I don't need any of that, you know. And and
and once.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
I got out of that relationship with my older kid's dad,
I was firm in that, like I didn't need a man.
I didn't want to go through that turmoil again. I
didn't want to have to go through being black and
blue and you know I have to go through that roller. No, no,
So I found I found trust again after that, I
(17:57):
found what it meant to be in a real relationship,
in an adult relationship.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Now that abuse of relationship that was part of your
American experience. You went off to the s and it
must have seemed like you're verging on the big time.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
There no, actually, no, no, it is you know, everyone
thinks like, oh my gosh, you've had the big time.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
You've moved to America.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
You start at ground zero, and it was really hard
and I think to take the rose tint glasses off,
you have to learn to trust people. And the way
that people going like it just it wasn't all smelling
roses for me. The people that I came across weren't
the most savory of people.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
It sounds like some of them were jolly unsavory. If
your house is getting shot up and you're getting kidnapped, yeah,
well those things happen.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Yeah, those things actually happened, you know, and it's quite
a natural thing.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
It's quite a common thing.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
It's normal thing over in America when you're living in
Long Beach, California, or watts or Compton, and you know,
it's it's normal over there.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Because it's like at least one of those stories house
getting shot up.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Oh look, we were moving out of the house at
the time, so the house got shown up and everything.
But the one I think the the more I guess,
the more vivid one is the one where I was
kidnapped and held a gunpoint for twelve hours, and I
ended up telling him that I was HIV positive because
that's all I could think of, chlamydia or AIDS, and
(19:28):
you can get rid of lamydia.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
So and he let me go.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
He let me go, and I was able to flag
down a couple of cars that were inside the park carrier.
Two of them wound up the windows and locked their
doors on me. And it wasn't until it was an
old Mexican man and he I was like dumb love
ballas yet and he gave.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Me his phone.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
I rang the police, and it just so happened that
the park ranger was also riding through there, and he
got on the sirens that men ended up being he
was found barricaded in the house and they found him
and I went to court and to tell my story
to a jury.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
You know.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
So these are the kind of things that is.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
You got rescued. Now, looking at the pictures of your wedding,
there's another rescue person, a rescuing person there Nixon doing
here was the celebrant at your wedding. Nicest guy you
ever meet. He came over to American and rescued you.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah he did so. He actually messaged me.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
I had left the kid's dad at that time, and
it just so happened divine intervention.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Thank you Lord.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
I remembered my log into my Facebook page and hello
he Within two seconds of me logging into Facebook, I
get a message notification. Turn on the message, Hey sis,
when do you think you're coming back to New Zealand?
Remember how we always said we'd love to do a
radio show together? And I thought, yep, this is that's
a sign. That is the sign that I need to
(21:03):
get up and out of here.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
And then basically you got you back into radio. You
started you in radio, didn't you. Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
So he was actually at Flavor doing drive show. We've
actually been friends since we were at high school, him
being into me, been in west Auckland, Y tex So.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
No, I think we've just had such a beautiful pathway
together anything, And I owe a lot to just him
being such an amazing friend, and you know that lifelong
friend who's I've learned a lot from as well.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Funnily enough, Hey, there were so.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Many things I wanted to talk to you about because
things like being on Dancing on the Stars of only
four months after you've had a C section. Yeah, you're wonderful.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Don't ever do that again. My cheeseer just slid off
my crackaches.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
And doing try that was Triathlon's celebrity ditsid Island.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Great stories to tell my grand.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Excuse me, Sam producer? Can we have kayle one about another?
Five times? Against all these stories that we like to
talk about. Hey, we've got to go, but you've picked
another song for us. What have you got here? That's
a song you pick.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
This is a song that I actually walked down the
aisle too to my husband Lamma, and this is the
moment that I was like, we're actually doing this. This
is the beginning of the unity of our family and
the unity that we have as a culture, both Maldi's One,
our families and just us as a family. It was
really about celebrating what we've been through, how far we'd come,
(22:35):
and really just declaring our love for each other in
front of all of our family and friends. It was beautiful,
such an amazing wedding, a great weekend. We didn't stop
until Monday.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
I think, well, it's.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Been great talking with you. What is the song that
we're actually going to be listening.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
To, Tory Kelly ed sheeron, I was Made for Love?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Okay, And so it sounds like, even with all these
experiences in the cluth, that you're still a romantic really.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Yeah, I'm still a big softy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
That's lovely and long may that continue and all the
best for your renewed career on Flavor. I mean you,
I mean I don't need to wish you too much
luck after you've done about fourteen fifteen years of radio.
I think that you're an old hand at that, but
wishing you all the best.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
This has been real life. I've been talking with Kaylie
McNabb about her career and life and the faith and
all sorts of things, and I'm looking forward to being
back with you again next Sunday night with another guest.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Calls made for for more from News Talks at b
Listen live on air or online, and keep our shows
with you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection, It's Real Life with John Cowan
on News Talk s ed B.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Gooday, welcome to real Life. I'm John Cowner. My guest
tonight was incredibly successful as a pop an, R and
B singer, and along with a lot of other things
in her life, she's had a great career now in radio.
Kaylee McNabb, Welcome, Kayleie. It's great to have you in real.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Life, Yoda. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
And your world just keeps on spinning and going on,
and there's new stuff happening all the time. You know,
when I thought, when I was told, you know, how
are you going to be interviewing Kaylee? I thought, Okay,
we'll talk about a pop career from say twenty years ago.
And then and then I started looking what else you've
done and just in the last six months, I mean,
we could fill up the whole show just talking about that.
For instance, baby number.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Six, Yes, yes, yes, I just had a baby.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
He's seven months now, yeah, little Maker, and he is
an absolute dream. He's such a beautiful baby and we're
really really lucky, and I think I was lucky this
time to make it to thirty four weeks, especially after
the rigamarole I've had with my previous daughter. And so, yeah,
he's absolutely beautiful. And yeah, I mean my husband are
(01:38):
playing tag team at the moment as I do breakfast
on Flavor and I do Breakfast Radio, and you know,
we're making a work.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
We make it work. It's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Oh, that's great, that's great. You mentioned some difficulties with pregnancies,
and I was reading about your struggles with Honor. Isn't
it your daughter? And she was how many weeks when
she was born?
Speaker 4 (01:57):
She was so my waters broke at twenty three weeks.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
That'd be concerning.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Yeah, yeah, it was quite I mean, once we got
over the excitement, oh we could have a baby, we thought,
hold on, this is actually quite scary because the things
that the doctors were telling us, we almost already we
were like, Okay, this is not as exciting.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
As we should be, and this is actually really scary.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
And there was a huge it was actually a really
morbid chat every day for about six weeks until I
got to thirty weeks, and I didn't actually make it
to the full thirty weeks. So I got to twenty
nine and four and she decided to come. She is
really really strong and healthy, but the first two years
of her life were very, very, very difficult.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
She got or something and then.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Yeah, she almost died three times RSV. Like you said,
the common cold, pneumonia, yeah, just in rhinovirus, yeah, you
name it. She would catch it and we would end
up in hospital on the respirator and oxygen and we'd
be back at square one every single time. It was
(03:08):
really a testing and trying time for our family.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
But you know, we persevered, and you've got a healthy
little girl now.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Oh she is feisty. She is healthy, She is headstrong
and independent, and you look at her and you think
she wasn't this little girl that was gasping for life.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
You know, that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, she is now.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
One of the things that I do recall reading about
that time was that you had mention your trust, your faith,
your prayers at that time.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Yeah, I think that was probably the It wasn't the
first time that I'd really dug deep into my faith,
but at one of the most important times that I
really just had to really stop and just really hand
it over to God and just be like, please, I
really need you to really just keep her in, don't
(03:56):
let her come out. Let these doctors do their magic
and stop my labors from happening. And then I managed
to keep her in until we're twenty nine weeks. And
you know, if you think about it, this, I went
in in the hospital in December before Christmas twenty first,
I think it was I had her seventh of February.
(04:16):
We didn't leave the hospital until May, and then four
months later we were back in hospital, you know, praying
for her life again. So it just goes to show that,
you know, it was a huge trust in God's direction
and where he was taking us. And I had loads
of loads and loads of our friends in far No.
(04:38):
We had prayer communities around Auckland, around New Zealand, praying
for our little girl and for her to be strong
enough to leave the hospital at several different times, and
we would play music. We would play gospel music, you know,
and it was just such a really beautiful time in
my life where I really just I really lent into
(05:00):
that faith that I had and my husband's as well.
And I think it wasn't until then we hadn't really
been open with each other about where our own personal
faith were. And as we came into that situation, even
Honor being our fifth child together where it was probably
the first time that we actually held hands and we
(05:21):
prayed over her together, you know, and we really just
you know, took away, it took away all the walls,
the barriers on what each other believed and how each
other were brought up, and we just really leant into
that and we trusted God had had us, had our family,
had our relationship, and had our daughter. And it was
(05:43):
a beautiful and it is a beautiful moment, and it
is a beautiful journey, and it still continues on. You know,
we're ever so grateful, which she just celebrated her fourth birthday,
and you know, we've got a cake for her at
home and at dinner. You know, our children do cut
a care and they're thanking God for Honor's health and
for Honor for being here. So you know, it's still
(06:06):
an ongoing thing that we continue to give praise for.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
How you've drawn other people into that as well. I
think I read a story about some doctors coming at
you have a great, big needle. I think a lot
of people would pray if I see a doctor coming
at them with a big needle, that you got him
to pray.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
So with number six, Micah, I ended up. I was
thirty four weeks and I went into labor. I had
been sitting in hospital for a couple of weeks already, yep.
And my labor started and he was stuck right into
my ribs, and because he was so small, I wasn't
able to give birth to him naturally. They had to
(06:47):
get him out as soon as possible. So they rushed
me straight forward, bumped me right into the front of
the line to go in and to have a sea section.
And I get there and you know, all the doctors
are setting up, the nurses are sitting up, and I'm thinking,
oh my gosh, I'm doing this again. This is the
second time I've had to go for a sea section.
And I was like, oh, please, please please. So they
(07:10):
get me ready in the gown. I got my my
husband and his little scrubs and everything. He's got the
things on the nurses there, and I just looked at him.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
And I said, can we do a cut? A care?
Speaker 4 (07:23):
So we're in there and the nurse is standing there
with us, and she's allowing us to do this, and
at the end she says Amen. I don't know if
she's Christian, god fearing or whatever. I'm like, thank you,
thank you so much for allowing us to do that
or God. We go rolling into the theater and I
see this man standing there and I see this big
ass needle sitting on the table and he's doing all
(07:45):
these tests and stuff, and he's putting the getting the
IV ready and stuff. And he's like, okay, okay, you're
gonna sit on the end of the bed. Grab a
hold of the pillow. And I was like, whoa, wa
wa wa, whoa.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Just just hold up folk, like maybe two minutes.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Look, you're Maldy. I'm Maldy. I just I need to
ask God to be in this room with us right now.
I want my baby. We didn't know if it was
a boy or girl. I was like, I just want
my baby to be healthy and I need to be
able to survive this.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Yeah, you know, I didn't know what they were going
to do.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
It's harder the second time round when you have a
C section, and the third, fourth, first anytime after that.
So I just wanted to be you know thing. I said,
do you mind if maybe we do a cut of care?
And he was like, oh, of course, of course.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
He took his head off, he took his little scrub
head off and he was like right there.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
And my husband led us in a cut of care
and everything and at the end he goes, oh, Calda,
you know, ready to go, and I you know, it
just it's amazing how just a little prayer, just a
little belief and a little ask of you know, divine intervenure.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
It's interesting that you're saying this is perhaps not the
first time, but it is something a bit of a renaissance.
I mean, for a lot of people, face sort of
sometimes trails off a little bit as people get older
and it's more cynical and everything like this, but yours
sounds like it's it's developing.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, yeah, I would say there, yeah, yeah, I would
definitely say that.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
And I think the more that I learned to trust
in you know, God and what He's got planned for me,
then the more that I get to see the beauty
in what I actually have around me. And I think
that's the that's the that's the essence of it, because
then you're not shrouded by they have and have not
looking at other people's relationships, families, jobs, going why don't
(09:33):
I have that?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Why don't Why am I not getting that? Why am
I not doing this?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
You know?
Speaker 4 (09:37):
And you start to look inwards, and you go, where
is my where's my love? Where's my faith? Where's my gratitude,
where's my appreciation?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
You know? Where Where am I am I?
Speaker 4 (09:48):
You know?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Happy?
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Am I grateful for the things that I have around me?
And you start to take notice of all the great
things that you have around you, and therefore you start going, actually,
I'm I'm good.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
I'm happy. God's got me. Life is good.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
If you've just tuned in. My guest tonight is Kaylee McNabb,
who has a career and music and a radio star
and on Flavor Breakfast host on Flavor Now.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, I'm a big fruit salad of talent.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
We'll carry on this conversation after this break. This is
real life on news talks. It'd be.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on news talks.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
It be.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
These broken way.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
That the soul. Of course you remember it. Of course
you remember it.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Open up letters just in case you thought, just in
case yeah, I mean it was.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
It was like twenty one plus years ago. Everyone's like, wow,
you can still sing like that. Well, I haven't actually
stopped singing.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Oh that's great, that's very good to hear, now, Kayleie,
that was you singing in two thousand and one. And
looking back at the YouTube videos and which I've had
a lot of fun doing, going back over your music
and videos and things, and there's this incredibly mature, poised performer.
And then I look in the night notes and you
are sixteen. Yeah, yeah, sixteen. How does a sixteen year
(11:26):
old get on to that level of success? Because that
was number two, and then your album came out and
it was in the top top lists for.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
What's seven your top ten album it was I think
it was number four.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I think the most of number three. Four.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Anyhow, you had a great career there with I think
four top ten hits and things. Sixteen, you're still at school.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Or credit to Matty J. Matty J. Rise, Yes, yeah,
or credit to him.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
He obviously his amazing air for music and an incredible writer,
incredible producer. He's still producing and writing to this day
as he travels and lives around the world abroad okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Good to give them some everything like that, but you
had the voice.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Well, look, my my Cord always used to tell me,
but make sure you have great stories to tell your grandchildren.
Go and live a life. Life is for the living.
And my grandmother, she always used to tell me, what
is the point of not doing trying something if you've
never tried it before. You can't say no to something
(12:33):
if you haven't already tried it before.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Is this the grandma that just died recently? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
one of the jays of you. I noticed it in
my quarter as well.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Yeah, and so I just I've always I've always just
taken life like that. Then, you know, make sure I
have great stories to tell my grandchildren, to tell my
children to.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Tell you guys, well, what of these videos that I've
been looking at that you wasn't a long Bethel's beach
and in a land cruiser and things with a whole
lot of people in bikinis and dancing in caves and
bonfires and stuff like that. At sixteen, that must have
you must have been thinking this is such a buzz all.
You're thinking this is actually hard work.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Oh no, no, it was all fun. It was totally.
It was totally fun. It's totally fun. Yeah, waking up
at four am in the morning and having a you know,
twenty two hour shoot. It was all fun, especially when
you're getting smoked out by putting bonfires and the bath
in the cave and trying to quickly get the shots
and that you needed to before the cave filled up
with water.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Oh an increasing video.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Oh no, well it actually did in the end, and
we ended up having to vacate the cave, but we
had shot all the shots by then. No, doing the
video clips and doing the tours, getting to tour with
amazing artists like at Pink Cypress, hell, you know Missy Elliott, Shaggy, Yeah,
just to name a few, like great, great, great memories,
(13:55):
great some. I forget that I've done that kind of stuff.
I actually forget that I've done all of that.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Now at sixteen, you want a typical sixteen year old,
because you've been playing in clubs and bars and things,
are you. Yeah, the fast far the button.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Well, I wasn't going there to drink that alcohol, that's
for sure.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
No, no, no, So I had to fudge a little
and say that I was, you know, seventeen and that
I was, indeed, you know, old enough to go and
you know play in these bars. Wasn't drinking obviously, so
I just wanted to go and play. I just wanted
to go and sing, So I was jamming with live bands.
It wasn't until my PE teacher saw me and was like,
(14:36):
what are you doing in this bar? I was sir,
I'm jamming with the band, and he was like, you
better be at school for PE tomorrow and I need
that assessment.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I was like, right, yeah about that.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Now, there's also some grittiness in those songs and talking
about being cheated on by your boyfriend and things. Now
I want to come back to that because you just
got married recently. Yeah, and it looked like a wonderful wedding.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
And finally, finally.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Well that's the thing. You have been with Lama eleven years,
you have four babies together, you'd and modern couples can
enjoy life together without a wedding ceremony. What was it
about formal marriage that says something about what you want
your relationship to be or is or or whatever. Why'd
(15:24):
you decide after eleven years together to get married?
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Well, I mean, yeah, we've been together for eleven years.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
We were engaged for seven.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Okay, so we actually got engaged after we came out
of that first lockdown and I found out that I
was pregnant. So those kind of things kind of hindered
actually going forth with a wedding. And at first he
had things that he wanted to achieve, and so I
had just given up by their Now, marriage.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Has always been on the agenda for you.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
No, No, I actually never wanted to get married. Really, no, No, is.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
That because you had had some cyings and you had
been stomped around, you know, your hard had been stopped on.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Well, you know, they're actually my older two children.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
The relationship to their father that was a really horrific
relationship and it was quite physical and mental and emotionally
you know, abusive, and so coming out of that, I
was just quite happy just to you know, be with
someone who made me happy and just didn't have any
(16:33):
type of like full on, you've got to be here,
I've got to be here.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
It's a contract.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
And then we had a child and then we're like, okay,
we're really doing this. This is actually like we're actually
in this now, you know, we're tied to each other.
Then we decided to have another child, and it kind
of got to the point where the kids we've been
asking us, and I had to actually think about to myself,
like what did marriage actually mean to me? And at
(16:59):
that point, it meant the unity of our family together
because we are a blended family. And like all props
to my husband, he has been my rock and actually
the person who's really showed me that this is actually
what a relationship is, this is what love is. And
(17:19):
my notion of what love was before that. I mean,
as you can tell from all the songs like one
plus one, it's it's cynical, yeah, yeah, and it was
very I guess at that point where I don't need
a man.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
I don't need any of that, you know. And and
and once.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
I got out of that relationship with my older kid's dad,
I was firm in that, like I didn't need a man.
I didn't want to go through that turmoil again. I
didn't want to have to go through being black and
blue and you know I have to go through that roller. No, no,
So I found I found trust again after that, I
(17:57):
found what it meant to be in a real relationship,
in an adult relationship.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Now that abuse of relationship that was part of your
American experience. You went off to the s and it
must have seemed like you're verging on the big time.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
There no, actually, no, no, it is you know, everyone
thinks like, oh my gosh, you've had the big time.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
You've moved to America.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
You start at ground zero, and it was really hard
and I think to take the rose tint glasses off,
you have to learn to trust people. And the way
that people going like it just it wasn't all smelling
roses for me. The people that I came across weren't
the most savory of people.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
It sounds like some of them were jolly unsavory. If
your house is getting shot up and you're getting kidnapped, yeah,
well those things happen.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Yeah, those things actually happened, you know, and it's quite
a natural thing.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
It's quite a common thing.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
It's normal thing over in America when you're living in
Long Beach, California, or watts or Compton, and you know,
it's it's normal over there.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Because it's like at least one of those stories house
getting shot up.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Oh look, we were moving out of the house at
the time, so the house got shown up and everything.
But the one I think the the more I guess,
the more vivid one is the one where I was
kidnapped and held a gunpoint for twelve hours, and I
ended up telling him that I was HIV positive because
that's all I could think of, chlamydia or AIDS, and
(19:28):
you can get rid of lamydia.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
So and he let me go.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
He let me go, and I was able to flag
down a couple of cars that were inside the park carrier.
Two of them wound up the windows and locked their
doors on me. And it wasn't until it was an
old Mexican man and he I was like dumb love
ballas yet and he gave.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Me his phone.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
I rang the police, and it just so happened that
the park ranger was also riding through there, and he
got on the sirens that men ended up being he
was found barricaded in the house and they found him
and I went to court and to tell my story
to a jury.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
You know.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
So these are the kind of things that is.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
You got rescued. Now, looking at the pictures of your wedding,
there's another rescue person, a rescuing person there Nixon doing
here was the celebrant at your wedding. Nicest guy you
ever meet. He came over to American and rescued you.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah he did so. He actually messaged me.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
I had left the kid's dad at that time, and
it just so happened divine intervention.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Thank you Lord.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
I remembered my log into my Facebook page and hello
he Within two seconds of me logging into Facebook, I
get a message notification. Turn on the message, Hey sis,
when do you think you're coming back to New Zealand?
Remember how we always said we'd love to do a
radio show together? And I thought, yep, this is that's
a sign. That is the sign that I need to
(21:03):
get up and out of here.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
And then basically you got you back into radio. You
started you in radio, didn't you. Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
So he was actually at Flavor doing drive show. We've
actually been friends since we were at high school, him
being into me, been in west Auckland, Y tex So.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
No, I think we've just had such a beautiful pathway
together anything, And I owe a lot to just him
being such an amazing friend, and you know that lifelong
friend who's I've learned a lot from as well.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Funnily enough, Hey, there were so.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Many things I wanted to talk to you about because
things like being on Dancing on the Stars of only
four months after you've had a C section. Yeah, you're wonderful.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Don't ever do that again. My cheeseer just slid off
my crackaches.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
And doing try that was Triathlon's celebrity ditsid Island.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Great stories to tell my grand.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Excuse me, Sam producer? Can we have kayle one about another?
Five times? Against all these stories that we like to
talk about. Hey, we've got to go, but you've picked
another song for us. What have you got here? That's
a song you pick.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
This is a song that I actually walked down the
aisle too to my husband Lamma, and this is the
moment that I was like, we're actually doing this. This
is the beginning of the unity of our family and
the unity that we have as a culture, both Maldi's One,
our families and just us as a family. It was
really about celebrating what we've been through, how far we'd come,
(22:35):
and really just declaring our love for each other in
front of all of our family and friends. It was beautiful,
such an amazing wedding, a great weekend. We didn't stop
until Monday.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
I think, well, it's.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Been great talking with you. What is the song that
we're actually going to be listening.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
To, Tory Kelly ed sheeron, I was Made for Love?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Okay, And so it sounds like, even with all these
experiences in the cluth, that you're still a romantic really.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Yeah, I'm still a big softy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
That's lovely and long may that continue and all the
best for your renewed career on Flavor. I mean you,
I mean I don't need to wish you too much
luck after you've done about fourteen fifteen years of radio.
I think that you're an old hand at that, but
wishing you all the best.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
This has been real life. I've been talking with Kaylie
McNabb about her career and life and the faith and
all sorts of things, and I'm looking forward to being
back with you again next Sunday night with another guest.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Calls made for for more from News Talks at b
Listen live on air or online, and keep our shows
with you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.