Coast FM host Lorna Riley on her engagement, whirlwind romance, and love in your 50s

Lorna Riley and her Hinge match, Michael, got engaged in Venice after less than six months of dating. Photo / @wakemichaelnz / Instagram

After a divorce, two bouts of breast cancer, and navigating the treacherous terrain of online dating (including an unsolicited picture or two), Coast FM host Lorna Riley has found her happily ever after. She speaks to the Herald’s Lana Andelane about her recent engagement to Hinge match Mike, love in your 50s, and how the old adage “when you know, you know” still rings true.

“On the second date, we pretty much realised we were going to be together forever.”

This is how broadcaster Lorna Riley summarises the start of her whirlwind romance with now-fiancé Mike, a man she matched with on the dating app Hinge and met in-person at a James Taylor concert in late April.

“I [matched with] this man who said, ‘I’m going to a concert tomorrow night. I’ve got a spare ticket - do you want to come?’ And I thought, ‘Well, concerts are pretty safe, there’s security guards around. If it doesn’t work out, we don’t even have to talk much’,” Riley, 56, recalls to the Herald.

“I went to this concert and within 24 hours, we had arranged our second date, which was three days later.”

It took less than six months for Mike to get down on one knee - well, kind of.

“Actually, he didn’t get down on one knee - it was raining,” laughs Riley.

The two had spoken about the possibility of marriage early in their relationship, but Riley, believing it was “too soon”, had waved off the suggestion.

That was, however, until the couple embarked on a two-week cruise of the Mediterranean.

“I was starting to kick myself, thinking this would be the perfect opportunity,” she laughs.

“Burano is a little island off the coast of Venice, and it’s so pretty with all these pastel-painted houses and the little bridges over canals. It’s actually very close to Verona, which is where Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was set.

“I studied Shakespeare at university ... the guide had mentioned that, and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s really, really cool’. And then when we were on the bridge, Mike turned to me and he quoted the Dire Straits’ song Romeo and Juliet,” she recalls.

“There’s a line from that song that says, ‘You and me, babe, how about it?’ And that’s what he said. And then he said, ‘Will you marry me?’ I hesitated for all of about 0.1 second,” she chuckles.

As Riley notes, it isn’t her first rodeo - nor is it for Mike. Both have children from previous relationships; Riley is mother to Lucy and Zoe, and grandmother to Lucy’s young daughter Kaia. Mike has three children; Ella, who is in her early 20s, and teens Matthew and Peter.

“When you get to our ages - you know, I’m 56, he’s 55 - when you know, you know. And we both knew,” Riley says.

“When he turned to me, it was unexpected in one way - but it wasn’t in another.”

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Both sets of children have been supportive of the engagement, Riley says, a smile in her voice.

“Goodness knows what they’re saying behind our back,” she jokes.

“We had a big family dinner to announce it to everybody.

“They all seem absolutely thrilled. My youngest [Zoe] was surprised, but she assures me she’s very, very pleased. She’s already starting to plan the wedding, which won’t be for a little while - but she’s very keen on doing that.”

Riley’s parents are also thrilled at the news, she says, recalling her father’s response: “We’re not surprised, we could see it.”

“I’ve been through so much lately that, you know, I think if I can have happiness, I should grab it with both hands - but to have [her children] endorse that is just the icing on the cake,” she says.

Aside from her family and friends, Riley had another set of people to tell: her loyal Coast FM listeners.

She announced her and Mike’s engagement on air on Monday, and has been overwhelmed by the flood of supportive messages from her listenership.

“Everybody is saying such amazing things,” she gushes.

“The funny thing is, all of Mike’s friends are saying, ‘She’s a lucky woman’, and all of my friends are saying, ‘He’s a lucky man’ - and it’s true.

“We both consider ourselves lucky.”

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One might think what it means to be in love fluctuates as you age: perhaps priorities shift, emotions abate, and the flames of passion dampen. But for Riley, the warm-and-fuzzy feelings of young love have not changed - if anything, she says, love is better in your 50s.

“I genuinely think it’s just as exciting but I also believe it’s slightly better, in a way, because I think you know yourself better,” she muses.

“All those problems we both had with earlier relationships around communication, trust, all those sorts of things - you get to a stage where you just think, ‘Take me as I am’. I don’t want to pretend to be anything other than who I am. I don’t want to change for anybody.

“To find someone who perfectly fits you in that moment, it feels even better than that lovely exhilaration of falling in love. The ‘honeymoon period’ as it were, we all know that that doesn’t last.

“What you need underneath is that friendship, that respect, that trust, that loyalty, that communication - those are all the things that I can see are there already, and all the things I was looking for ... [you need] to look at the person underneath when you get to our ages.

“We are in this for keeps.”

At the end of the day, she laughs, she and Mike “don’t want to go on those dating apps ever again”.

“I don’t know what people are thinking,” she says, recalling the horror stories she experienced from her time on the likes of Hinge and Bumble. Unsolicited pictures of men’s appendages, for example, were “a bit of a surprise and a bit horrific”.

“They don’t get better looking with age,” she laughs. “Nobody wants to see them anyway but, you know, they don’t even take good angles!”

Coast FM host Lorna Riley used dating apps post-divorce - and met her partner, Mike, on Hinge. Photo / Supplied

Riley and Mike are now looking forward to the future. They have several trips planned, including a holiday to Riley’s “favourite place in the world”, Rarotonga, following her double mastectomy surgery next February.

“That’s something I should have probably had done before. I did want to give my body a chance to heal from everything else that had been through, but my oncologist said, ‘Look, you’ve had breast cancer twice. You’ve got the BRCA2 gene - it’s the sensible thing to do’,” Riley says.

“But it’s pretty hard when you go through any kind of treatment - particularly my chemo, my radiation, my surgery - on your own, not having somebody there to be by your side.”

Now, Mike is there “100%”, Riley says.

“His mum and his sister both had breast cancer, so he understands quite a lot about it,” she explains.

“He is thoroughly behind my decision to have this operation in February, and I know it’s going to be an easier ride knowing that my person is there alongside me.

“The whole thing about ‘losing your femininity’ - it’s part of your identity, your breasts - and having them gone, how is it going to affect me emotionally? [Mike’s] just reassuring me constantly that, you know, I am more than just my breasts,” she chuckles.

Also planned for next year is a trip to Western Australia with their youngest children to visit Ella, Mike’s eldest. In the meantime, she and Mike are planning plenty of travel around Aotearoa.

“We’re going to Wellington for a gig, we’re going to Queenstown for a gig,” Riley enthuses. “We like the same things. We like concerts, we like getting out and about.”

She’s also hoping to return to the United Kingdom towards the end of next year - a country she hasn’t been to since she and her family immigrated to New Zealand when she was just six years old.

“[It’s] where I’m from, but I’ve never been back since ... so I really need to fix that.”

Lana Andelane is an entertainment and lifestyle journalist who joined the Herald in 2024. She was previously lifestyle editor at Newshub, where she began her career as a news producer in 2019. She enjoys writing about music, pop culture, fashion and beauty.