Hannah Tamaki has shared a cryptic tweet about shipwrecks amid her exit from Dancing With The Stars NZ.
"A rough sea or rocks can sink a Ship. It takes another amazing team to salvage the treasure in the wreck and bring it back to the Top [sic]," the Vision NZ political party leader wrote.
Almost half an hour after her post, MediaWorks - which owns Newshub - confirmed Tamaki had been dropped from taking part in the show due to public outrage.
"It was originally planned for Hannah to take part in the show. We now recognise this was a mistake and we apologise," a MediaWorks spokesperson says in a statement.
"We have seen a very strong reaction, some of which has been extreme and concerning and MediaWorks does not condone bullying. We would be failing in our duty of care to everyone if we continued as planned."
During The Project NZ on Monday, host Kanoa Lloyd responded to rumours Tamaki was going to be one of the celebrities on Dancing with the Stars for 2020.
She said she didn't want Tamaki on the show saying her "xenophobic and homophobic" views are "properly dangerous".
In response, Tamaki's campaign manager Jevan Goulter posted to Facebook calling Lloyd a "rancid rotton [sic] stuffed pig with blood pouring out of her eyes" and said she should "show NZ what voluntary euthanasia looks like".
Tamaki fired Goulter for the comments, saying while she didn't appreciate Lloyd's comments, Goulter had no right to use "that disgusting language and behaviour" and his employment was terminated, effective immediately.
