Brodie Kane has never been known to do things slowly. On the face of it, she operates at one speed: high-energy, high-speed, high-excitement.
Her yarns are a mile a minute and she’s got so much going on in her head, conversations will often have three different threads running at the same time.
She’s jazzed for everything, up for anything and in her self-named role as a “professional hype woman” (legitimately a job she gets booked for), she has a unique ability to absolutely froth whatever needs frothing.
But personally, the broadcaster and business owner – plus the star of new reality show The Traitors is looking to make a bit of a change.
“Right now, the one thing I’m really craving and trying to do is put down some roots, believe it or not,” she tells Woman’s Day.
“Don’t get me wrong – I love the chaos of my life, but I feel like I need to put in better steps around it to give me a little more quiet time and calm. I actually am ready to settle down.”
She adds firmly, “Now, let’s be very clear on this. Settling down doesn’t mean the picket fence, and the kids and the husband. But now I feel like I’m yearning to be a bit more settled around the amazingness of my life.”
Having just celebrated her 37th birthday last month, Brodie’s currently enjoying a supremely fulfilling stage of her life. From last year’s second place on Dancing With The Stars, through to setting up her own podcast business, Brodie Kane Media, she’s absolutely living her best, if very busy, life.
Dancing the night away with Enrique Johns on DWTS.
Just don’t ask her if she has a boyfriend, please.
“God, can we just stop asking that?” she quips. “It’s literally the least interesting thing about a person. I know it’s mostly people asking because they care, but it gets so boring.
“And best you believe, if I met the very lucky gentleman for me, I’ll be so happy, I’ll be shouting it from the rooftops – the world will know! Poor bugger. He doesn’t know what he’s in for.”
In the past few years, Brodie’s become something of a semi-reluctant poster star for the strong, confident single woman. Her hesitation isn’t because she’s not any of those things – she very much ticks those boxes – but because that label doesn’t tell the whole story.
“The thing is, we preach that we love being strong, independent women and all that, and yes, we do love it! But it also sucks sometimes. It does. And it’s OK to say that.
“It’s when the big life moments happen when I’ll say, ‘Crikey, I wouldn’t mind a pal here’. You do have those moments where you’re feeling a bit vulnerable and that’s all part of it. But there’s an element of toxic positivity around the ‘strong, confident woman’ label, and there needs to be space to say that you can be both strong and vulnerable at the same time.”
Brodie dabbles in dating when she has time – “although not on the dating apps, I hate them, I have no time for them, I’m done with them” – but she admits she’s not out there dating as much as she “should or could”.
“I’m not trawling the streets looking for a person or anything. But a person would be nice to share the things I love, you know?
Going on running adventures. Travelling. That’s what I want. But I’m certainly not at home being sad about it.
“But it’s also OK to still want these things. I feel like we often want to protest that that’s not what we really want because everyone else goes, ‘Aww, how have you not found a man yet?!’ and you don’t want people to think of you as some sort of failure, because you’re not. I’m so fulfilled in my life.”
A combination of great family, a fantastic group of friends, her growing business – which churns out the likes of New Zealand’s number-one women’s podcast, The Girls Uninterrupted among others – and TV projects such as the Paul Henry-hosted The Traitors means Brodie’s cup is very full.
She decided to take part in the Three reality show because it appealed to her love of the unknown.
In the series, which operates a little like a murder-mystery party, contestants – half celebrity, half normies – have to work out who among them are the “Traitors” rather than the “Faithful”.
Competitive Brody gives The Traitors a run for their money!
“It’s a cool format – I watched a few episodes of the UK version and was like, ‘Woah, this is epic’. I just love getting amongst things and having fun.
“The only thing I was nervous about was bugs. I hate them. Enemy number one is spiders. When I was in the army, I got the opportunity to go to Brunei on a jungle training exercise and of course I said yes to it without thinking much about what’s actually in the jungle. I could have ruined the exercise and given our position away just because I’m afraid of a bloody spider!”
Last year’s Dancing With The Stars was another example of Brodie’s “she’ll be right, let’s give it a crack” attitude – and she still looks back on it as one of the best experiences she’s ever had.
“I had no idea what it was going to be like, but if someone asked me to do it all again tomorrow, despite the tantrums and tears, and the sheer amount of work, I absolutely will. I really regret not keeping up with the dancing afterwards too. I would have loved to kept on learning, but, you know, time!”
Plunging headfirst into the unknown has been a skill of Brodie’s ever since her days in the army and one that she’s transferred into small business ownership after she was made redundant from her radio gig in 2020. Going out on her own was eye-opening, she tells.
“Ever since working for myself, I allow myself to take more risks – if you don’t, you’ll just stay stagnant. You have to and sometimes it’s terrifying, but if you’re passionate about something, and even if someone says no, you can keep going until someone says yes. I really enjoy being the architect of my own success.
“I think about all the times when us women were pitted against each other in the media industry – we were told there’s only X-amount of jobs, so you were always competing with someone else. But that’s not true in this new open space. I think it’s leading the way to show there’s enough room for all of us amazing women.”
With a whole stack of projects in the pipeline, including hosting supporters’ tours to France for the upcoming Rugby World Cup, fittingly, Brodie is right now enjoying being the hype woman for her own destiny.
“I often pinch myself in terms of all the opportunities that I’ve been given,” she nods. “But I’m also really proud of myself of how I’ve conducted myself over the years in terms of nurturing relationships along the way. Life, I must say, is pretty good!”
The Traitors NZ starts Monday, 7 August on Three. Stream first on ThreeNow.
