Jessica Rowe: ‘I’ve stopped caring what other people think and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been’

“The older I get, the less I care about what people think,” Jessica says. “This is who I am and if you don’t like me, well, you can go get stuffed, quite frankly.”

The Jessica of today — the one who, at 46, stripped down to a bikini seemingly without a care for our cover shoot — isn’t the same Jessica of five years ago.

“It’s only in the last few years that I’ve really felt comfortable in my own skin,” the Studio 10 co-host admits. “I used to put far too much pressure on myself to be perfect — I think we can all be guilty of not cutting ourselves enough slack — but I’m not [perfect] and no one is.”

This new-found confidence has brought with it an openness for Jessica, whose career on Australian TV has spanned all three commercial networks and often been plagued by drama.

The ugliest saga came a decade ago, when Jessica’s fresh face landed on the front page of newspapers next to then Nine boss Eddie McGuire’s.

He was accused of campaigning to sack — or, in his words, “bone” — Jessica from her hosting seat on the Today Show next to Karl Stefanovic. The push was a success and Jessica lost the gig in 2007 while on maternity leave with her first daughter, Allegra, who turns 10 this week. Until recently, Jessica had remained tight-lipped about the toll the ordeal took on her and her family — Jessica has another daughter Giselle, 7, with her husband, newsreader Peter Overton — as well as the bullying and sexism she both witnessed and experienced in newsrooms over the years. Since then, she’s bared all in her memoir, Is This My Beautiful Life?, and spoken candidly while sitting at the Studio 10 desk with co-hosts Ita Buttrose, Sarah Harris, Joe Hildebrand and Denise Drysdale.

“I’m so stubborn and I don’t like to be pushed around but it has taken time to be able to stand up for myself,” she admits. So, given all that’s been flung Jessica’s way since her debut on our television screens in the ’90s, does she feel smug to have now found her feet on a popular morning show?

“I don’t feel smug, I’m just happy — the happiest I’ve ever been. To me, that’s success and success really is the best revenge,” Jessica says. “I also feel so very lucky to have finally found a job that I enjoy and where I can be myself — on camera and behind the scenes.

That’s pretty rare and the ultimate ‘up yours’.”

IT’S NOT ALL RAINBOWS

Happiness at home has been hard-fought for Jessica at times, too. Not because of husband “Petey”, who she says is “everything I could possibly hope for in a man and more”, rather, the inner turmoil she suffered as she struggled to fall pregnant at 35.

It coincided with the humiliating public ‘boning’ episode.

“I thought I was a failure as a woman because I couldn’t fall pregnant and then when I did finally have Allegra, after going through IVF, I felt worse,” she admits. “I had this idealised, perfect image of what being a mum would look like and it was nothing like that. I loved Allegra like nothing before but I was crippled by the level of despair and sadness I felt. What made it worse was that I knew how lucky I was so I told myself I had no right to feel so wretched. There was a period when I was sure I was losing my mind.”

She wasn’t; Jessica had severe post-natal depression. “The level of shame I felt when I realised was so unexpected,” she says. “Mum had always been very open about having bipolar disorder and I was someone who supposedly understood mental illness, had a supportive family who got mental illness, knew where to get help and had the financial means to get help, yet I still felt ashamed. But admitting I wasn’t coping and asking for help was the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Jessica has been taking antidepressants “on and off” since having Allegra: “They’re fantastic. They’ve helped me enormously and I have no shame in saying that. I’ve also seen a psychiatrist regularly since then and that’s helped me overcome feelings of inadequacy and realise I am good enough.”

There’s no denying, though, that Jessica is inherently tough with enviable resilience, integrity and an impressive ability to look on the bright side of life.

“Growing up with my mum was very difficult and it meant I had to grow up a lot faster than most kids,” she explains. “That made me stronger because I realised very early on that life isn’t easy. It’s not always rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes, it’s a really hard slog. I also think our vulnerabilities make us tougher.”

As for her critics, she doesn’t give them any time. “I’ve learnt that it’s the people who love me and know me best that matter most anyway. Life’s too precious to let people who don’t matter take your energy from you.”

Jessica has a simple tactic to deal with online trolls: “Block. Block. Block.” Thankfully, her online world isn’t just filled with “negative ninjas”, as she calls them. The eccentric, pixie-haired presenter has found a tribe of dedicated followers on social media, thanks mostly to her viral #craphousewife posts that show just how real her culinary struggles are.

“I’m a big believer in being honest, even if that means saying too much at times,” she says with one of her signature snorts.

“We put so much pressure on ourselves to have this charmed existence but it’s not possible. I think that’s why people relate to those posts. They’re proof that we can’t be great at everything.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. I think you do other women a disservice by being dishonest.”

“I try to do my best but there are times when I’m not such a great wife or mum. I lose the plot, I shout and then I hide in the bathroom with my iPad because I don’t want to deal with my girls fighting. But I think it’s so important to talk about that too.”

Is there anything else Jessica would like to confess? “I have Botox. I pick my toenails. I hate running. You could live in my car, that’s how messy it is. Basically, I’m normal.” So normal, in fact, that she leaves the shoot in her grubby

Volvo to do the school pick-up.

JESSICA ON BODY CONFIDENCE

She looks great but a perfect body isn’t something Jessica strives for or worries about. “I just do one pilates class a week but I’m lucky that, thanks to my genes, I’ve often been on the skinny side. I’d love to have boobs and a bum but I don’t. What I do have — that readers won’t see — is cellulite and stretch marks. Since I’ve had kids, though, I celebrate my body for what it’s capable of instead of worrying about [those things].”

Originally published as ‘I’m just happy — the happiest I’ve ever been’