JAY-JAY & DOM’S MARRIAGE SPLIT
The radio dreamteam call it quits
It’s the end of an era! After 18 years together, beloved radio duo Dom and Jay-Jay Harvey have broken hearts around the country by announcing their marriage is over.
“We still love each other like best friends,” Jay-Jay, 43, tells Woman’sDay. “We just need some air.”
Announcing their split on The Edge Breakfast, Dom, 44, eexplained, “The magic spark is gone – we’re more like bbrother and sister. It got to ththe point where we felt more lilike flatmates.
“It’s been a long time cocoming, but we love each otother very much and still hahang out. There are no big figfights or anything like that.”
However, Jay-Jay added, “TThere’s lots of private family stustuff that we can’t talk about, whwhich has put a strain on the relationship.”
Like fellow radio stars PolPolly Gillespie and Grant KerKereama – who still work togtogether after their 30-year relarelationship ended in 2015 – JayJay-Jay insists their show will go on as normal, joking, “WeWe’re just lucky that we get on sso well, but it probably will get aawkward when Dom goes onTonTinder.”
TThe star pair married in a wintwinter-wonderland wedding in QuQueenstown in 2004, with the bbride wearing a silk gown and flfluffy white cape.
To celebrate their 10th anniversary, Jay-Jay (née Feeney) revealed to Dom in our magazine that she was taking his surname.
She told us at the time, “I was actually really afraid of getting married because I didn’t want it to fail. Neither of our parents’ marriages worked out and that really played on my mind.
“It’s so important to me that we get it right, and I do think it’s a real achievement that Dom and I have made it so far. I need to break the cycle. I don’t ever want a broken family.”
After a tumour left Dom infertile, he and Jay-Jay tried five rounds of IVF over eight years in an attempt to start a family, but they eventually gave up on their baby dream. Dom confesses, “You hear a lot about how IVF tears couples apart and you can see why – it’s so stressful.”
The couple have been raising Jay-Jay’s nephew Seven, 14, as their own son for the past 10 years after his father was jailed. Though she and Dom now live separately, Jay-Jay says, “We want to make sure his life doesn’t feel like it’s turned around.”
While writing her autobiography Life on the Edge last year, the usually-bubbly blonde suffered from depression and decided to live apart from Dom for nine months. Describing how she felt at the time, Jay-Jay told us, “It gets to a point where I want to quit my job, my marriage, my home and my kid just to clear all the clutter out of my head.”