Zan Rowe once broke off her engagement. Now, she’s taking the biggest leap of her career

During our first half hour chatting on the chocolate modular sofa at Zan Rowe’s 1970s Melbourne flat, the long-time music broadcaster talks about her loves. Gardening. Elizabeth Strout novels. Midnight Oil. Rest. Asking people questions she wants to know the answers to, “because if I want to know the answer to a question, I’ll guarantee 100 other people do, too”.

Her maxim? “Don’t ask, don’t know.”

That’s definitely a cue. I look at Rowe’s bare fingers, flashing as she speaks. And ask the whereabouts of the ring from her now-infamous broken engagement to her fiancé-turned-partner Geoff Orton.

More on that unusual relationship status later. But for now, Rowe sort of snorts: “The ring? I don’t think there was one. Hang on, maybe we got one in Sri Lanka.” Then she second guesses herself, saying she isn’t sure if that ring was “actually a technical engagement one”. She shrugs. “Maybe it’s just the feminist in me. I was like, ‘Why does the woman wear an engagement ring – is branded – but not the man?’ ”

At home on a weekday morning, Rowe talks easily about her personal life, but for most of her award-winning career as a broadcaster on Triple R, Triple J and Double J, her focus has been on others. Via her Take 5 with Zan Rowe podcast turned ABC-TV show, she’s coaxed personal revelations and tears from guests including Sir Paul McCartney, Liam Gallagher and Missy Higgins. She’s championed emerging artists, hosted festivals and counted down New Year’s fireworks.

All the while, there’s been no hint of scandal. Rowe is trusted and respected by industry heads, is friends with all her exes. At festivals and supermarkets alike, strangers tell her they “grew up” listening to her, that she’s their friend. “That’s the best thing you could say,” says Rowe. “You should feel like I’m hanging out with you.”

Her secret? “Don’t be afraid to show yourself, show your personality. Show passion. Have an opinion. And you don’t have to always be bubbly. Be normal.”

That lack of artifice is showcased today, with the 48-year-old padding around in white socks, white jeans and a pink jumper. “What people get wrong about Zan is that she’s really cool,” Orton tells Sunday Life. “She’s actually a dork from the suburbs. Sure, she may have interviewed every great songwriter but no one can really compete with her ability to make up a silly song about our cat, Norman. She calls herself a troubadour, and she kind of is.”

Right now, Rowe is more a ringmaster in charge of tons of moving parts. She’s podcasting, is mired in the upcoming fifth TV season of Take 5 and is hosting the ABC-TV reboot of Race Around the World.

Last December, after more than 20 years at Triple J and Double J, Rowe walked away from the medium that made her famous. Not because she was unhappy. Because she was too comfortable.

We never stopped loving each other, and this was worth fighting for.

Zan Rowe on reuniting with her partner, Geoff Orton

“I could do it with my eyes closed,” she says. “Loved it, but wasn’t learning anything new. I wanted to go somewhere where there was a chance to prove myself again. Because I love the hustle. I was like, ‘Let’s get scared again.’ ”

The decision was a “controlled leap of faith” that took three years to execute. “I had that fear of the unknown,” says Rowe. ”But I wondered what would happen if I opened up a bit of space. And sure enough, something popped in there.”

When Rowe was offered the job of hosting Race Around the World, she was “blown away”. Having majored in cinema at university and once competed in a 24-hour filmmaking contest, the original 1997 reality show had been “essential viewing” for her. Producers told her she had got the gig because “I can talk to anyone”, she says. “They were like, ‘We want to throw you in at the deep end.’ That was really important, because this is the first thing I’ve done in many years that has nothing to do with music.”

Rowe says fronting a studio-based show and linking six contestants with judges including Claudia Karvan, Margaret Pomeranz and John Safran has been “like choreography, and I wanted to master it”.

The show unites Rowe and Safran – who won the popular vote on the first series and was also disqualified – for the first time in their 25-year friendship. “His judging feedback is great, and then he qualifies it and qualifies it and goes on and on,” says Rowe. “Sometimes I have to say, ‘Did you actually like the film, John?’ ”

Safran returns serve, emailing me to say that Rowe “maybe comes across as the sensible one in the room when she’s on her shows, but that’s an incomplete picture”.

An appetite for discovery has been a defining force in Rowe’s life. Growing up in Melbourne’s Essendon, the youngest of three children of a nurse mother and engineer turned teacher father, Susanna “Zan” Rowe planned to channel her “wild imagination” into being a writer.

At 19, she deferred a professional writing course to live between Melbourne and her then-boyfriend’s Los Angeles place. By “happy accident” during one 1999 trip home, a friend took her to his shift at a community radio station. She went back the next week, sat with a microphone and was hooked.

Her reputation as a prepared, warm broadcaster “comes from a place of passion”, she says. “I didn’t start this job because I wanted to be famous. I wanted to share what other people were doing and shout that from the rooftops. Everyone has a story.”

Her other great constant is Orton. After meeting in Sydney on dating site RSVP.com, the couple have been together for 15 years, including “a hiccup” when they briefly split. Engaged at the time, “we got that seven-year itch and were driving each other nuts,” says Rowe. “We did a bunch of couples’ therapy [sessions] and tried to make things work, but it wasn’t happening.”

Months later, Rowe had “a full meltdown” in Byron Bay when she saw Orton on social media. “He looked really good and I was like, ‘Ah, you’re attractive again.’ ” They reunited having both done separate therapy, she says. “That enabled us to start again and, crucially, to realise we had and have something really special. We never stopped loving each other, and this was worth fighting for.”

These days, they “live, play, travel and adventure really well together. We never run out of things to talk about.” Rowe adds that, by choice, there will be no second engagement (“I bloody hope not”) or children: “I’ve never had that pull. Kids are hilarious and fun but I’ve never regretted that decision.”

Rowe’s home, bought in 2020 with Orton after 14 years living in Sydney, has two posters of Elvis in his Vegas jump-suited pomp on a bathroom wall. A chair draped with a crocheted rug. A sideboard in the lounge room – formerly the flat’s garage – packed with alphabetised albums.

“I love being home and I really love silence,” says Rowe. “When I’m not doing work, I’m journalling, going for walks, spending time by myself.” Nearing 50, she says, “you do realise what matters. My focus is on personal relationships and family and all the things I know won’t last forever.”

To that end, Rowe is taking off soon for a four-week holiday in the Greek islands and France with “a bunch of gay men”, including comedians Tom Ballard and Rhys Nicholson, which she describes as “a dream”. She’s hoping to see Celine Dion in Paris: “I’m booking things going, ‘God, this is expensive.’ Then I’m like, ‘Do it, you’ll never get this time again.’ I wish I knew when I was going to die, so I could budget for it. I feel I’ll die and have $400K that I could have spent on great travel.”

Upstairs in her sunlit office, walls are lined with CDs – yep, alphabetised – and framed, autographed photos with McCartney. A wardrobe bursts with clothes Rowe is selling on Depop, including a Logies dress worn just once. She doesn’t need it. She’s chasing the unfamiliar, not looking back. Still asking questions, not only about other people’s lives and art but about her own.

“Five years ago, I was thinking, ‘Have I hit my peak? Is this it, and then I kind of fade and maybe pick up a local radio gig and then glide and retire?’ ” Rowe says. Being given the reins of a legacy show has been “a good reminder you can start a whole new career”.

That challenge is “exciting, and it comes from having confidence, from age. My motivation is to be bold, but not impulsive, for as long as possible. I always want to change.”