Straight Up

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I guess that's why I committed so hard to rugby because I was like where these people end up is really cool places. I was like 'maybe if I just follow this path it'll be different to that path that I'd seen.'

She accepts her “crazy” high profile. “I’ve really got to stand next to those who champion our sport, and that’s within New Zealand Rugby itself.” Tui’s endearing interviews and authenticity have been welcomed by those who say rugby is bereft of characters and charisma. As a child, Ruby was exposed to a lot of drug and alcohol abuse and later had a period of "chaotic lubrication" herself.This memoir by Kiwi Rugby Sevens player Ruby Tui & NZ singer Stan Walker's memoir Impossible: My Story employed the same ghostwriter, Margie Thomson. & both books to me feature an amazing theme of the ability to forgive people in their childhoods who have done them both a great wrongs. As we wrap up lunch, one of the Accor managers comes to chat. It’s the school holidays and his two young boys are with him; Tui spends the next 15 minutes talking to them, showing them her World Cup medal. Ruby now that you’ve won the gold medal, do you have any sponsors? Have people been inundating you with requests to plug products?” We had stopped playing for a long time. By the time I got pulled into that interview, I look up and all three tiers [of the stand] are chokka, I’d never seen it. And so, I was like, ‘Oh, my guys are keen! My guys are here for the party!’ I stood in the sports section, and I searched and searched. I pulled out book after book, but there wasn't a single biography on a Kiwi female in the whole section. I eventually found an autobiography of Billie Jean King, a famous white American tennis player who did amazing things, but that was it.

I cried a lot while reading this book, but there’s a passage early on in Straight Up about reading and the value of books, that gets me every time: “Every single night [Mum] buried herself in a book when she got into bed, and it made me look up to reading, and that’s the reason I am still a reader. I got Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone one Christmas, and it was just the best to have my very own novel to read.” I can imagine many a lonely child, adults too, thinking of Tui’s’ book in the same way. What a gift. So it actually brought my mum and me closer, because she realised she was literally my real-life hero growing up.” When I see the contract in front of me, it’s not so much about everybody else. It’s like, well, Ruby, is your heart on this? Is your passion still in this?

Some people might find that weird. But if you walk into our team - first of all, we’re a rugby team, everybody chants after they win. You look at any clubroom. It’s a common thing. Nothing I do is mediocre or just for likes. I really like myself; I don’t need other people’s likes, you know,” she says. Ruby Tui is a professional rugby player and a bestselling author. She won an Olympic gold medal in 2021, an Olympic silver medal in 2016, a Rugby World Cup Sevens title in 2018 and a Rugby World Cup title in 2022.

I know the score might have made it look easy, but it was not easy. Don’t be fooled. Lots of running. My GPS blew up – that’s how hard it was. So respect to Russia.” Things happen in your life and unfortunately they can shape you in negative ways. I became very fearful, I was holding it within me. I actually, in my little kid brain, thought that if I was around drugs or the white powder that I was responsible for killing people because of what I'd seen. Her memoir Straight Up was the bestselling book in New Zealand in 2022, and Ruby's brilliant rugby skills and amazing personality won the hearts of New Zealanders, culminating in her shortlisting for the New Zealander of the Year. This interview with Ruby Tui is tremendous, haha, what an absolute legend. #bbcolympics— Leeroy Genkins (@ironsoffthetee) July 30, 2021What rain? Where’s the thunder? We’re at the Olympics. Let’s be happy. Let’s compete safely and peacefully. Peace and love. Love you guys,” Tui said. There's nothing as inspiring as seeing your mum get out of a bad relationship and organise and reach out and get help. It just makes me feel like I can do anything.