Claire Robbie and Richie Hardcore's Meet-Cute: 'I guess my great kissing made up for the depressing conversation'

Richie Hardcore and Claire Robbie with sons Jack (right) and Rafael. Photo / Hannah Webb

Former broadcaster Claire Robbie is a yoga and meditation teacher and founder of The School of Modern Meditation (wearesomm.co). She also established No Beers? Who Cares! to shift attitudes around alcohol. Richie Hardcore is a public speaker and educator on healthy masculinity, pornography, mental health, and domestic and sexual violence prevention. He recently launched the Rise Above Charitable Trust to work with those outside the mainstream system through education, mentoring and healthy lifestyle choices. The couple live in central Auckland with sons Jack, 8, and Rafael, 4 months.

Claire says…

I had just come back from living in the States and met Richie at a friend's birthday party in 2015. Richie was there with his girlfriend at the time. For some reason we got talking about sobriety. He reminded me of the dudes in AA in Los Angeles and I just assumed he was an ex-alcoholic.

He's the complete opposite, actually. I didn't really think anything of it. I'd never really been attracted to tattoos. I had all these assumptions, basically. That was our first meeting and then later I put a thing on Facebook to say I was going to stop drinking for a year. I was too socially and emotionally reliant on alcohol. I set up No Beers? Who Cares! for people who wanted to hang out with others who didn't want to drink. He got in touch and was so caffeinated. I remember thinking "whoa, that guy's intense".

Richie became one of our ambassadors. He's never been a drinker and he's incredibly educated about what alcohol does to society. He spoke at a few of our events, and I remember taking his photo and being a bit intrigued. His gold chains threw me, and I thought "that's a lot of jewellery".

He's a really amazing public speaker and is very chatty and open. I've always been attracted to a person when they're doing the thing they love. He came to my yoga class and looked at my boobs quite a bit – he had that dropping eyeline. He wasn't assertive with asking me out – there was a little bit of hesitation, "do you want me to ask you to go on a date?". I said "yep".

We went on the worst date ever. It was so weird. He picked me up and then we went to Farro because he had to do some social media content on vegan hot cross buns, and I had to film him. Then we circumnavigated Coyle Park and I remember thinking "this is the most depressing conversation I've ever had". There was really dark, heavy, intense energy and I remember getting in the car and thinking "nah, too much for me". Then we didn't see each other for a month.

I went to Bali to run a retreat. Occasionally I would get a message at 10.30 at night, saying "hey, how are you doing?" I'm like, "I'm at home with my son because I'm a single mum". It wasn't the most seamless getting together.

The next time we saw each other we went to a Yin yoga class together and I went back to his house, which was such a mess. Then we got some food and had a pash. That was that. Then he couldn't get rid of me. It was a slow burn introducing him to Jack and we moved in together a couple of years later.

Richie is so funny, hilarious! He is really intelligent, and I appreciate his dedication to things he loves, even if they irk me sometimes and I don't really understand them. It's wonderful to be with someone who's passionate about life because I am too. We understand that we both like doing things that don't involve each other. His honesty is refreshing – we have full disclosure between us. I like the way he takes care of himself at the gym, and I appreciate it's important to him. His self-respect is really admirable. He is a vegetarian and I eat meat – and being with him has made me question some of my choices because of the way he sees himself and respects the world around him. I love how he's been with Jack, especially after having Rafael.

Claire Robbie and Richie Hardcore met in 2015. Photo / Supplied

Richie says…

When I first Claire at that party, I could sense she was my sort of person – for better or for worse. I could tell that she had a lot going on, energetically. It's hard to explain. Sometime later Claire asked me to speak at a No Beers? Who Cares! event. As the child of an alcoholic, I've always been a rescuer and I was talking about this. Claire piped up from the back and said, "would you rescue me?" It was really funny, and everyone said "ooooooohhh".

At the start of 2017 I had quite bad depression and was recovering from a lot of stuff that had happened to me, so I imagine the conversation on our first date was pretty intense, because I'm quite forthright in how I think and how I feel. And I was messaging at night because I had really bad insomnia. I was thinking, "yo, what's up with that interesting girl?"

After the Yin yoga class, I guess my great kissing made up for the depressing conversation [laughs]. She was like "he can stick around" and we hung out from there.

I hadn't really been around kids – I'd been this weird bachelor. Jack's name is tattooed on my leg now. I made a video for him to check it was okay if I asked his mum to marry me and to explain he'd be stuck with me. I knew Claire liked Cathedral Cove and liked a particular ring with rainbow-coloured sapphires at Zoe & Morgan.

So, we went to Cathedral Cove and as I asked her to marry me a double rainbow appeared. It was exciting, but as we're both divorced, we were both a bit nervous about the idea of marriage. I love Claire for a whole range of reasons – she's passionate, very intelligent and has a deep empathy for the human condition.

She's curious and open to learning things and applying them to helping others. She's funny when she's not being sarcastic. She was already Jack's mum but to see her go from being my hot girlfriend to being pregnant and having Rafael has been really profound. She's really supportive but doesn't take any sh*t though.

- As told to Penny Lewis