The Clarke Gayford conspiracy theory that refuses to die is back, stronger than ever
Clarke's in prison. Or maybe home detention. Or did he use diplomatic immunity to get out of trouble? The details aren’t important to the thousands who are convinced the First Man is a criminal.
In what feels like some sort of ridiculous flashback to four years ago, online conversation has reached a fever pitch about the location, and criminal status, of Aotearoa’s “first man” and preeminent house-moving-and-fishing-adventure TV show host, Clarke Gayford.
It is virtually impossible now to look at the Facebook comments of any news story about New Zealand without seeing comments demanding the media “tell the truth” about Clarke. “Where’s Eric? You mean where’s Clark?” writes Angela, in response to a New Zealand Herald story about Eric Watson. “Thought they too were looking for Clarke,” comments An, on a 1News story about Air Force contrails that, inexplicably, attracted more mentions of Gayford than of the classic chemtrails conspiracy theory.
A Facebook group dedicated to the apparent mystery of Gayford’s location has almost 35,000 members — a number that’s grown by more than 10,000 in the last few weeks — and sees at least 10 posts a day with Clarke claims, as well as hundreds of comments.
According to the online wisdom in that Facebook group, and across the internet, Clarke is definitely in trouble with the law, maybe has name suppression, and is certainly looking down the barrel of some jail time.
Similar rumours in 2018 about Gayford were eventually, officially at least, quashed when police commissioner Mike Bush felt compelled to release a statement clarifying that the Prime Minister’s partner had not, in fact, “been the subject of any police inquiry” and nor had he “been charged in relation to any matter.”
The statement came very shortly after a New Zealand Herald investigation found no evidence of any such criminal case. The whole situation then kicked off a weird round of media reckons about how it was all a bit silly to even care about these rumours. At the time it would have been a challenge to cite any local precedent for a prime minister’s other half to have found themselves the subject of such sustained and vicious rumours of this type.
Now, four years later, we definitely have precedent — set by basically the same rumours about exactly the same man — and yet the recent incarnation seems substantially more widespread and pervasive.
The steadily growing narrative about Gayford’s alleged absence has managed to weave itself into current events in the way that all good conspiracy theories do. Just weeks after the recent Tongan earthquake, claims about Gayford included that he’d been caught in Tonga, “with strippers and drugs,” but that he used diplomatic immunity to escape consequences.
As police clashed with protesters and arsonists outside parliament at the beginning of the month, there were predictable claims that the event was timed to provide a smokescreen for Gayford’s court appearance in Whangarei the same day. One viral first-person Facebook story even alleges that a police officer in a Wellington bar the night before the protest raid told the author that Gayford was “up on his drug charges up north,” adding, in a too-good-to-be-true way, “why do you think we have to wait until Wednesday to go in, it’s all about distraction mate.”
Neither Gayford himself, nor the Prime Minister, have officially addressed the ceaseless allegations, but the PM has occasionally had to casually bat the issue aside, and the man himself did seem to take a subtle swipe at the suggestion, by some, that any recent sightings had really been body doubles. “Yes but have you ever seen Clarke Gayford and me in the same room at the same time?” he wrote in an slightly cryptic tweet, adding the hashtag #justaskingquestions.
And, now, just like four years ago, police apparently felt compelled to defy their typical process and issued a statement about Gayford.
“While in general we do not respond to enquiries which seek to confirm if individuals are under police investigation, on this occasion we can say that Mr Gayford is not and has not been the subject of any police inquiry, nor has he been charged in relation to any matter,” says the police statement, worded identically to the one they issued four years ago.
The same statement, because the situation is the same now as it was then.
Inquiries to both the New Zealand High Court and District Court yielded only a redirection to the police statement. In short, everyone says there’s nothing going on.
The story hasn’t changed, and neither has the response, but the intensity and reach of the conspiracy theory is much stronger now. Of course a definitive denial from police will do nothing to quell the speculation and accusations — after all, detractors will claim, if police are willing to schedule the protest raid as cover for Gayford, surely they’d be happy to tell some lies too.
Sighhhhh, this is not really worth my while pondering but why does social media trigger such mass stupidity in the masses? I can only think they are all bored shitless and need to drum up some meaning in their drab inward looking lives not to mention playing the blame game for all their ills.