Former Breakfast host Jenny-May Clarkson reveals the fulfilling new ways she’s spending her days. Photo / Jessie Casson
When the Weekly catches up with Jenny-May Clarkson, she’s running on very little sleep and a surge of creative energy. A spark of inspiration has kept her awake through the night, writing nonstop for her online Daily Confidence Course.
“I finished at 3.15am and went, ‘What’s the point in going to sleep?’” laughs Jenny-May, 51. “So I kept writing.”
It’s a far cry from the non-negotiable early nights and 3am alarms that defined the former Breakfast host’s life for years.
“Everyone says, ‘Breakfast is the best job with the worst hours’,” she jokes.
Yet despite the big life changes, Jenny-May is still incredibly busy. The difference is, now it’s entirely on her terms.
“At times, it’s been a little scary. At other times, it’s exciting and exhilarating to be in a space of creating the future I want for myself and for my whānau.”
Thinking back to December when she signed off Breakfast for the final time after six years of hosting, Jenny-May says it probably seemed sudden to viewers. But the idea of leaving had been quietly growing for years.
“I could see the impact the job was having on me, on my energy and my capacity, and also the impact it was having on my husband, children, relationships and friendships,” she says. “I needed to find a way out.”
Mother to 9-year-old twins Te Manahau and Atawhai, and stepmum to husband Dean’s daughters Libby-Jane, 21, and Leah, 18, Jenny-May also knew she needed financial stability for her whānau. Leaving without a plan wasn’t an option.
“I knew that I had to make a move at some point, but the regularity of income and stability keeps you there. That’s what keeps food on the table and pays the bills.”
During the Christmas break in 2024, she challenged herself to create a CV, the first she’d written since school, and sent it to some trusted friends for feedback.
“Even that – putting something on paper and sending it to people who know me, who I love and trust – was scary,” she admits.
Jenny-May didn’t do anything further with that CV, but something important had changed.
“My brain had started considering, ‘What else is out there for me?’ I did a lot of work around my identity, and separating myself out from me as a television presenter and Breakfast host, pulling myself away from that to just Jenny-May.”
It’s a skill she had learned the hard way during her days as a top netballer.
“My whole identity then was being a Silver Fern, and when I was dropped and that was taken away, I felt lost,” she says. “I didn’t know who I was. That lesson has always stuck with me.”
When it came time to leave TVNZ last year, some 20 years after she had first joined the broadcaster as a netball commentator, she says it was a mutual decision.
“On the one hand, it was freeing, for lack of a better word,” Jenny-May explains. “On the other hand, I had been part of an amazing organisation for so much of my life, and I knew I would miss the incredible opportunity to share space with our guests and audience.”
But there was no regret.
“I don’t look back,” insists Jenny-May, who was involved in choosing her last day on air. “I make decisions and I move on, and that’s exactly what I did.
“I’ve never been one for farewells, so I would have been happy to announce it on the Thursday and be gone on the Friday, but TVNZ said that’s not fair on the audience and I understood that.”
In the end, Jenny-May spent an extra week on air before her final show.
“I look back on my career, and I did some amazing things and was able to cover some incredible events,” she says. “I have no regrets – just enormous gratitude.”
Even with such strong conviction in her decisions, in the weeks that followed, without the structure and responsibilities of Breakfast governing her days, Jenny-May felt adrift.
“I found I couldn’t organise myself,” she says. “I was so used to a certain routine and being out of it, I was all over the place.
“I would write a to-do list and couldn’t tick one thing off. I think part of it was being a bit discombobulated, adjusting to not getting up to a 3am alarm.”
Then came Christmas 2025 and with it, a profound shift. Back home in King Country’s Piopio, she found herself doing things she hadn’t had time for in years.
“I can’t even explain how amazing it was,” recalls Jenny-May. “I want to cry thinking about it.
“To be able to be in a conversation and actually be present, to sit with my mum and niece out the back door, sometimes talking, sometimes just staring at the sky, then go, ‘Let’s play a game’, and me feeling like I could actually say yes.
“It sounds so simple and small, but it was huge for me. It had been such a long time since I was present, genuinely engaged, and allowing myself to have fun and laugh.”
After candidly speaking in the past about how unexpectedly challenging it was to adjust to life as a parent, Jenny-May shares that motherhood also feels different now.
Talking about her boys, she says: “I still have this window to stamp myself on them before the outside world and their mates take over. I know in a few years’ time my influence will be a heck of a lot less than it is right now.”
Refreshingly honest as always, Jenny-May is quick to add that parenting is still often overwhelming. For the first time, she was home for the entire summer school holidays and all of the chaos and noise that came with it.
“There were lots of fights and high energy, and me not coping,” she says. “I want to be more available and here for them, but at the same time, I need to have my own space to be able to create.”
Still, she can see there’s definitely progress.
“I think I’ve been a lot more present for my sons,” she muses. “I’ve been able to listen and hear them more, and not just dismiss them because I don’t have the capacity. I am nowhere near nailing it, but it is intentional.”
Through it all, Jenny-May is forever grateful to have husband Dean in her corner.
“He has always been my No 1 supporter,” she says. “Whatever’s next, he’s like, ‘Babe, you just go for it. I’m here 100% behind you’.”
On the subject of work, Jenny-May loves having the time to focus on her Daily Confidence Course – an online programme she has created to share with others the tools she has honed over her career.
“I’m enjoying imparting my knowledge and experiences, knowing that the things I am sharing will help people,” she says.
Jenny-May knows it works because she follows it herself, especially now, while thinking about where to go next with her career.
“When it comes to self-compassion, it’s easy to flip into thinking, ‘What are you doing? Who’s going to hire you? The only thing you’re good at is reading an autocue’.”
But when these thoughts creep in, Jenny-May is quick to reset.
“It’s going back to journalling and gratitude, and my daily practices. I know when I spend time connecting in with where I’m at, how I’m feeling and understanding how that can influence the rest of my day, then I’m able to lift my energy and choose how I’m going to walk into the day.”
Outside of her online offerings, Jenny-May is still dreaming up what’s next.
“With Breakfast, my purpose was sharing my experiences with others and giving them space to share their stories. And I have thought, ‘What is my purpose now?’ I am slowly leaning into the idea that actually I can have lots of purposes.
“My purpose is being with my sons, strengthening my relationship with my husband, with te reo Māori, and being with my mum more often.
“I’m also open and exploring, and looking at different opportunities and what it might mean for me amongst what I’m creating in an online space.”
Jenny-May knows one thing for sure – anything is possible.
“This year, I’m committed to growing,” she says. “I feel like I’ve been stuck for a couple of years and now I have this amazing opportunity to do some of the things I have wanted to do for a long time.”
For more on the Daily Confidence Course, see jennymayclarkson.com.