Perched on a stool in her kitchen, Jay-Jay Feeney takes a sip of her coffee, breaks out a big smile and reflects that she finally has a lot to celebrate this Christmas. Where the pandemic once clipped her wings, this year has brought about some newfound freedoms.
The popular radio host is walking unaided again after a broken ankle, has happily ditched underwire bras after recent breast-reduction surgery – farewell, F-cups! – and no longer feels the need to crop her boyfriend, Hoani Molnar, out of social media photos to keep his identity secret.
It’s 8am on a Tuesday when the loved-up pair welcome Woman’s Day into her inner-city Auckland apartment. They enjoy a quick goodbye kiss and cuddle before he leaves for work managing a fashion-tailoring store.
Age difference? So what?! The smitten couple are successfully bridging the gap.
Finding themselves in the throes of a promising new relationship was not something either pictured when the country was thrown into a level-four lockdown in August 2021. Following a mutual friend’s dinner in July, Jay-Jay had invited everyone back to her place for cocktails.
The next day, she discovered Hoani had left his scarf behind.
“So I messaged my friend Steve and asked for Hoani’s number,” she recalls. “Then I texted him, ‘Can I drop off your scarf or courier it?’ He replied that he’d pick it up and arrived later with a bottle of wine! We started just hanging out and thought each other was really cool, but it wasn’t going to be ‘a thing’. I wasn’t looking for a relationship.
“A few weeks later, lockdown happened and I asked him if he wanted to stay at mine because we initially thought it was only going to be for five days. But lockdown kept going and going for four months, and he just never left. I joke that it was like Stockholm syndrome!”
It’s about love, laughs and good times
as Jay-Jay and Hoani look forward to family gatherings and a Bali holiday.
As it inched closer to Christmas, the pair realised that it was, indeed, “a thing”. Hoani, who had previously spent three years in the army, didn’t officially move in until May this year.
“Even though he was always at mine, he was still paying rent at his flat,” tells Jay-Jay. “So one day, I said, ‘Alright, we’ll go get your stuff and you can pay rent to me instead.'”
Although they’ve been in a “lovely” relationship for 18 months now, Jay-Jay, 48, has been hesitant to talk publicly about it, both out of respect for Hoani’s privacy and also because of the ensuing judgement surrounding their 20-year age gap.
“People are so judgemental,” she declares. “I don’t care about age. It’s everyone else who cares, which makes you think you’re doing something wrong! But when I first met him, I never ever thought about his age. I knew he was younger than me, but I sort of guessed he was mid-thirties.
“Two weeks later, we were talking about something and he didn’t get my reference. I was like, ‘How old are you?’ and when he answered that he was 26, I just about died. I was so shocked.
Cheers to us! Jay-Jay wasn’t looking for romance, but she and Hoani hit it off straight away.
“When I told him I was 46, he did admit that was quite a big gap. But it didn’t bother him. Hoani is so mature – he’s not your normal 28-year-old. He’s an old soul who likes hanging out with older people.
“We go to a lot of parties with friends who are my age or older and he loves it. He’s such a great conversationalist who chats to everyone.”
Jay-Jay admits to being nervous at initially meeting his artist dad James, who Hoani grew up with in Pukerua Bay on the Kāpiti Coast, but she needn’t have worried.
“James was so nice and sweet,” she remembers. “He said, ‘I don’t care about your age, as long as you’re good to my son and he loves you.’ Of course, James is six years older than me, so we have lots to talk about – like the ’80s!”
There comes a turning point in every new relationship, however, where your partner sees you at your worst physically. For Jay-Jay, that was in the days after an operation to reduce her cumbersome breasts by half a kilo each, taking them from an F to a D cup.
“Hoani was so good after my surgery and did everything without being asked,” shares Jay-Jay. “I couldn’t lift my arms to wash my hair, so I had to sit on a chair while he showered me. That’s the moment when I felt like an old woman. He should have been out there having fun and there he was bathing his old-lady girlfriend!”
Jay-Jay’s breasts have been a talking point throughout her whole life. In her younger years, she was renowned for getting them out for occasional radio stunts or flashing them at parties to get a laugh. But in the past decade, they’ve burdened her with back pain and posture issues, requiring her to visit a physiotherapist every week.
“I’ve had big boobs since I was a teenager, and I struggled to find clothes that fit and flatter,” she says. “The reason I’d been putting a reduction off for years was the cost. It’s a lot of money to come up
with for something that feels so selfish.
The radio host is D-lighted with the results of an operation to reduce the size-F breasts that were causingher pain.
“But I couldn’t handle it any more and I was fortunate enough to sell my marital home that I had with Dom [Harvey, her ex-husband and former radio co-host], so I was able to get $25,000 to cover it.”
The broadcaster – who co-hosts the More FM Drive show with Paul “Flynny” Flynn – had her operation at Franklin Hospital in Pukekohe in May and shared the journey with her dedicated listeners.
“I actually can’t believe I finally did it. The surgery was better than I expected. I had nothing to worry about. After I woke up and was shown the work that Dr Adam Greenbaum had done, I was immediately happy. I was perky, perfectly symmetrical and a manageable size!”
And what does her boyfriend think?
“Well, Hoani isn’t a boob guy,” she says candidly. “I could tell that straight away when I met him. It wasn’t until two weeks before the operation that he said, ‘Oh, I think I’m going to miss them!’ But he just wanted me to be happy. He’s one of these people who doesn’t care what you look like – he cares about your character and the type of person you are.”
The couple have been on double dates with Dom, 49, and his new love, 28-year-old Wellington arts student Ash Males. In fact, the friendly foursome are heading to Bali together over New Year.
Jay-Jay admits, “The idea of going away with your ex and our new partners might make other people shriek, but not for us. It’s so much easier to be friends with your ex than not, especially when you’ve
got shared custody of kids or, in our case, a dog. It’s too exhausting being angry.”
Jay-Jay ended her 18-year relationship with Dom in 2017, but the pair are still legally married. She tells, “Dom often comes over around 7.30am, when Hoani and I are both still in bed, and he drops Kayne [the dog] onto our duvet, then goes to get us coffees.”
This month, the couple’s Christmas celebrations are looking exceptionally cultural. First up, is a hāngi in Kāpiti Coast with Hoani’s dad, who is of Māori and Hungarian descent. Then on the 25th of December, they will gather at Dom’s house, where Jay-Jay’s mother Robynne, 65, plans to cook a “Viking feast” in honour of her beloved Scandinavian heritage.
“My mum is Danish and she’s obsessed about Vikings,” laughs Jay-Jay. “As a joke, we recently dressed up as them for a Scandinavian Christmas market – and she’s got all the decorations.
“Unfortunately, Mum’s not a great cook, though. Most things she’ll admit to burning or overcooking. But she’s going hard-out this year on recreating all the food the Vikings ate.
“I’m like, ‘Mum, you’ve never cooked a duck before in your life!’ Nevertheless, she’s going to give it a crack. And just in case, I’ll make sure to have some other snacks hidden under the Christmas tree!”
