Coc-Kroft a ‘recluse’

She was the girl next door whose television career spanned 22 years, but Lana Coc-Kroft says her “broadcasting bucket list” is now full.

The former Miss Universe New Zealand, now 52, owns a property investment company and told the Herald on Sunday: “I had an amazing career in television but I don’t miss it. I am reclusively withdrawn and socially retarded. I have become a small person in my own little world. It is liberating to have anonymity.”

While filming an episode of Celebrity Treasure Island in Fiji, Coc-Kroft became ill from a coral cut and was flown to hospital with potentially fatal streptococcal toxic shock syndrome.

“I died a couple of times but when you are that sick you don’t know. The overwhelming thing is how it affected the people around me more than it affected me.”

For the past 14 months Coc-Kroft has put all her energies into her first love — property.

The Companies Office shows she is a director and shareholder of two companies with her husband, Steve Gleye, with whom she has two sons, and lives with in Remuera.

“We are into developing, we buy and sell.

“I don’t miss any of the publicity, good or bad. I want to be remembered as someone who is approachable. I am happy for people to come up to me and

ALana Coc-Kroft

have a chat because they feel they can.”

- Carolyne Meng-Yee