Stevie Jacobs has no regrets to give up television to weather single parenthood

It’s been a big five years for Stevie Jacobs, after the TV presenter took a step back from his career in the spotlight because his daughters needed him – and it’s a decision he’ll never regret.

It’s been a big five years for Stevie Jacobs, after the TV presenter took a step back from his career in the spotlight because his daughters needed him.

Going through a high profile divorce from ex-wife Rosie in 2018, it was clear that Isabella, now 11, and nine-year-old Francesca needed their dad around. And it’s a decision he’ll never regret.

“I went from the Today Show, which was the best job in the history world and just travelling around Australia and meeting people and doing incredible things, and it was just brilliant – but the schedule just didn’t work out with having two young kids, so unfortunately I had to really take a back seat on the work front so I could look after my little girls and raise them, and be around when their dad needed them,” he told Insider this week.

“And you know what? It’s been the best thing I’ve ever done.

“We have the most incredible relationship.

Stevie Jacobs with his daughters Isabella, 11, (left) and Francesca, 9, at home in Bondi. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“I always refer to us as the three amigos.

“They do such beautiful things – like yesterday I dropped them off and then I came into the bathroom door and they used these special crayons to leave me a note on the mirror saying ‘Daddy, if you find this message I love you’.

Stevie Jacobs with Isabella and Francesa during lockdown.

“It just makes me cry and it makes me feel like I made a good choice in putting the kids first over the career.

“I’m winning with my kids.”

Today is actually one of Jacobs’ favourite days of the year – and seeing the excited faces of Isabella and Francesca as they hunt around for their eggs is what makes Easter Sunday as special as it is.

Stevie Jacobs (left) with the crew from Weekend Today.

This year especially, he says – as the older they get, the more they cotton on to the identity of the Easter bunny.

“It’s a really good age – but it’s an age where they’re starting to question the Easter bunny,” he laughs.

“They’ll just suddenly drop a ‘daddy, can you please hide some eggs in the pot in your bedroom?’

“We had this with the tooth fairy last year where the girls were like, ‘okay, daddy, we know that Santa is real, but we know that you’re the tooth fairy’.

“So I thought okay, I might have to cut them a bit of slack so I showed them all of their teeth that I’ve been collecting since they were kids.

“And that kind of broke the back of that one – but now I think it’s all the chatter at school and I’m starting to get questions about the Easter bunny.

“But if they ever bring up Santa, I always have the same line – ‘if you don’t believe, you don’t receive’.”

Stevie Jacobs and his daughters were ready for Easter.

All he wants is to give them a similar upbringing to the one he had – one he describes as big, busy and beautiful.

“I had a wonderful family and it was always about events – Christmas and Easter and family dinners and laughing – and I remember that from growing up, and that’s what I want to instil in my kids,” he says.

“They are truly my greatest reward, and my reason for being.

“They just turned out to be such beautiful kids.

“Every sleepover at a friend’s house the parents always call me and say ‘your daughters are so beautiful, they’re so polite and you’ve done a great job’ – and to me that is the best thing that I can ever hear.

“My life is sorted if my kids are happy.”

Yesterday they spent the day hunting for Easter eggs at a friend’s Easter lunch at Palm Beach – and today, they are geared up for round number two. But he’s taught them well – to always save the good chocolate for the three amigos on Easter Sunday.

Stevie Jacobs in Bowen when doing live television weather crosses for the Today Show.

“One of the things about my girls is I always really instilled in them the idea of sharing – so now they get their little buckets and they run around all excited and we do the ‘hotter, hotter, colder, colder’ and they go ballistic over that and love it – and then they put all their eggs together and share them equally,” he says.

“And we know to save the Lindt bunnies for home and then you’ve got your little $2 hollow eggs you take to the group,” he laughs.

On the work front, he’s doing some with Studio 10 filling in for host Tristan MacManus, producing his own travel stories travel as well as his weekly music radio show with Deb Knight on 2GB. And he loves all of it – because now is the right time to get back into work.

“They go between (the two houses) but I have had the majority of custody over the last few years – I almost raised them single-handedly at stages which is very challenging,” he says.

“As a single dad you just have to do what you can do, and it really has unfortunately affected my, you know, my career because a lot of my career was based on travel with the Today Show.

“I realised that the girls needed me and I had to be there for them, so I made that sacrifice, but it’s good.

“They’re getting to that age now where I’m looking at starting to do more work again, developing a few new things, which is really exciting.

“The girls are best friends with each other as well – I could hear them talking in their bedroom from my room a few nights ago and I listened in and one of them was reading the other one a fairy tale.

“Nothing made me happier than been seeing them happy.”