Photography: Matt Klitscher.
I feel I can live again.” These are the six words that Simon Barnett is finally, heart-warmingly able to say – and mean – after the harrowing loss of his beloved wife Jodi in October 2023. Speaking with the Weekly from his home in Christchurch, the More FM Breakfast Club host admits that when his counsellor told him in the early days that with the passage of time, he would be able to see more than just grief, he thought, like a Tūī advertisement, “Yeah, right.” And while it can still hit him in a debilitating way, he says, “In large parts of my life, I can definitely function now.”
But more than merely functioning, Simon has reinvigorated his ambition for success and has even taken on the challenge of competing in this year’s Celebrity Treasure Island.
“I did it many years ago and it was pretty tough,” he recalls.
“But this is partly me challenging my new self and my new life, and saying, just step outside of your comfort zone because it’s like the adage, do what you’ve always done, get what you’ve always got. And I was kind of miserable. “So I figured I’d better change something up. I discussed it with my kids and they were all for it, saying, ‘Well, you’re sitting at home in your lounge on your own or you’re actually on a beach somewhere.’ “It’s not like I’m on an Ibiza holiday and sipping margaritas by the pool! I’ve got no food, very little clothing and I’m sleeping next to people I don’t know. But I thought about it and decided, ‘I’ve got to do something,’ and I’m really glad I did.”
Learning to live with loss
It’s just one of many ways Simon has needed to dig deep within to find the strength to carry on after Jodi passed away after a nearly six-year battle with brain cancer and 32 years of marriage.
He joined the More FM Breakfast team, where he’s found genuine laughter. He went to church and cried, not wanting to speak to anyone, and he’s devoured books, such as C.S. Lewis’ Grief Observed, which he consumed “front to back probably five times”. He’s also vigilant about going to the gym four days a week.
“Fitness is a big thing for me mentally,” he says.
“It’s really helped me cope with everything. I’m fastidious about my routines.”
Reframing grief
A friend recently sent him a TED talk that’s also helped shape his mindset. In it, Nora McInerny says she dislikes it when people use the term ‘moving on’, and Simon agrees.
“I prefer to look at it as moving forward rather than moving on. That really resonated with me because moving on suggests that what you had was just temporal, and it’s not. Jodi will never be temporal. She will always be with me, in me, through me, but not in a heavy, burdensome way like it used to be, because in those early stages, for the first 18 months to two years, it was agony.”
A different definition of success
Coming out the other side of that all-consuming heartache, success for Simon looks different. Where once it was about being the best and number one, Simon says it’s changed.
“The old me was ambitious but stressed with that, and it came with a lot of caveats. Now, the more mature you are, you still have that drive to succeed, but there’s an acknowledgement, even internally, that you just have to do your best and let the chips fall where they may. It takes a hell of a lot of stress off my plate and I can allow the enjoyment to seep in.”
Family first
And, as always, his daughters, doctors Sammi, 32, and Isabella, 27, speech pathologist Sophie, 30, and software developer Lily, 25, and his five grandchildren, who call him Chief, remain high on his list of priorities and what a successful life looks like.
“It’s about being able to sit down and have really in-depth, intelligent conversations with my adult daughters, who provide so much joy and wisdom in my life. I used to be single-minded about what success meant, but now there are many strings in my life that I would put alongside success. They are family, faith, work, friendships and quality of life.”
A growing family
Simon’s also super-excited to share that he has two more grandkids arriving around June.
“I’m a relatively young grandfather to have seven grandkids, so my goal is to still be snowboarding when I’m 75. I love all that. I have all these things I hope I can do with my grandchildren. Times are different now. When my grandmother was 60, she was just old, but I really get inspired by some of the stuff I see and I want to be like that. “I love the gym, I love exercise. I feel really strong and I want to keep that up, but it’s always with the caveat of as much as you can control, because my wife was supremely fit and life can unfortunately defeat you, so your odds are increased if you keep healthy,
I suppose.”
Out of routine
His goal of mixing things up with his foray back into television was a somewhat rude awakening for many of the structures he had put in place for his day-to-day. While he’s not new to reality TV – he was runner-up on Celebrity Treasure Island in 2004 and won Dancing with the Stars in 2015 – relinquishing certain items proved more difficult than he had anticipated.
“I’m reasonably lean anyway and I just couldn’t afford to lose too much weight, because nobody wants to see something skeletal coming out of the bushes! They had security teams go through our bags so that we weren’t hiding any contraband. I tried to take some protein powder in there. They said, ‘That’s illegal!’ and took it. I tried to take salt and they took that out of my bag too. They were ruthless!’
As fans of the show are aware, food is very much a commodity.
“I was fading away, but you couldn’t do anything about it,” Simon tells.
Ego meets reality
Also on his mind were those gym sessions that he couldn’t just stop.
“I’m really nervous about looking like a giant-sized blowhard,” he laughs at the idea of beaming into people’s lounges.
“I found an old tree, and I was doing my pull-ups and press-ups, and they’re filming me. I’m going to look like a poser and I’m the opposite of a poser!’ So did his physical prowess help him on CTI? “No, it was useless as tits on a bull,” he laughs.
Not his strong suit
“They’re cerebral challenges and I hate those things because I am not. I don’t do puzzles because it’s just not in my wheelhouse. I’m useless at it. I found it very difficult. You can look at someone and say, ‘They’re a beast – they’re going to do well,’ but it’s absolutely not that. “I was focusing on the physical challenges because I like that, but it was best to defer to somebody else if it remotely involved thinking. If they get shots of me that look as though I’m thinking, that I’ve got an idea, well, I don’t!”
Thankfully, Simon had his teammates to help him.
“I really grew to care about them,” he says.
“They were all fantastic. That was one added bonus that I had forgotten from the previous series. In that environment, you become exceptionally close, exceptionally quickly.”
Back to basics
“Within 24 hours, you are sitting beside each other like it’s school camp. If anyone can remember that, you can get on the bus and you’re nervous as hell, but by the time you get off the bus at the campsite three hours later, you’re all buddy-buddy, and it’s the best of times. CTI is like that. “You almost reduce yourself back to your childhood and you rely on each other so that you form very close relationships.”
He may be willing to put his body and mind on the line, but for Simon, returning to CTI was personal. While he’s been in the limelight for more than 40 years, he’s never put his name to a charity until now.
A cause close to home
“It’s called the White Matter Brain Cancer Trust,” he explains.
“I wanted to support this charity because more children die of brain cancer, and the survival rates of brain cancer haven’t changed in more than 20 years, and so little is known about what causes it.”
Four hundred people are diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour each year, and while many other cancers eventually gravitate to the brain, White Matter specifically deals with primary brain cancer.
A devastating impact
“It’s a nightmare,” Simon says.
“It robs people of so much, like in my wife’s case. It took her speech, movement, her ability to shower, everything. I love this charity because family members often have to take on so much responsibility and quit their jobs, so there’s no money. “They’ll get e-bikes for the family or contribute to birthdays, or even get engagement rings, as sad as that can be. They’re not government-funded, so they rely on people. “With White Matter, I can speak with a great deal of authority on what this cancer does to families, the individuals and the caregivers. I’m in, boots and all because this is particularly heartfelt for me.”
Celebrity Treasure Island screens Monday-Wednesday at 7.30pm on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ+.
