Along the way, she became the mother of twin boys in 2016. Clarkson told Bennett how she thought she was going to love being a mother, but things took a turn when she had an emergency C-section.
“It was a lot. And they had trouble getting my boy, Te Manahau, out, and so there was a bit of damage. I’d lost a lot of blood.
“So kind of the first thing I remember after coming out of theatre was having my mum, my mother-in-law, the two midwives there, and then they kind of had these things with hats on and then just shoved them onto my boobs.
“And I just remember lying there, having this out-of-body experience going, ‘What the hell is this? I don’t feel amazing. I’m kind of freaked out. This feels weird.’”
She said that went on for the first week, spending most of that time in a complete daze.
She had to contend with feelings of inadequacy as she was struggling to produce milk, and had to use formula to feed her newborns.
“You kind of go, ‘I’m failing here as a mum.’
“And then my husband thankfully stayed with me for that week that I was there. I was petrified to touch my sons, to bath them. I didn’t bath my sons for the first three months of their life.”
Clarkson said that it was a massive change becoming a mum after years as a “party girl” where the only thing she had in her fridge was “bubbles, beer, cheese and chocolate”.
“And then I had these two boys. I didn’t think about it too much. I kind of thought, ‘Oh, well it’ll all come naturally to me, I’m a bit older, I’ve got my s*** together, everything will be fine’. And it was the complete opposite.“
She writes in the book about it taking a year before she was able to fully look at her sons and appreciate them. Before that, it was solely about trying to keep them alive.
“I remember about three or four months after having the boys going back to drinking, because I was trying to reset myself, and my normal prior to my sons coming along was party girl, everything’s fine, yes, I’m lonely, but, actually, that was my normal, so I was trying to go back to my normal because this was so overwhelming.”
Her rock throughout that time was her husband, Dean, who she describes as a natural to parenting. “I just feel very lucky to have them.”
In the chat, Clarkson also opened up about having her moko kauae done, which she said had been a recurring thought for a long time before she committed to doing it.
She said that she told one person at TVNZ but did not seek permission.
“I was just saying, ‘This is what I’m doing, just letting you know.’ I had expected that I might lose my job - don’t ask me why. I guess it was just one of those things that went through my head, which I wasn’t that concerned about, because this was about me and what I wanted to do.“
As for the negative feedback that has come with her having it done, Clarkson says she does her best to ignore the comments.
“I don’t read those emails. I don’t read comments. I mean, I saw one the other day, Clarkson Scribbleface, I think it was. I shouldn’t have cared about it, but I did, and just for that moment, my heart kind of ...
“And then my thought went to ‘I feel really sorry for you that you are stuck in your little world’.
“Yes, there were the negative comments, but, again, I don’t have access to the inbox - for good reason.”
Listen to the full episode for more from Jenny-May Clarkson on her story, including losing two of her brothers, embracing her Māori culture and her advice for new mums struggling as she did.
Her memoir, Full Circle, is available to buy now.
Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast hosted by former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett. New episodes are available every Sunday.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
