Fiona Byrne: Jane Bunn on her ‘Bond girl’ moment, fan tattoos and more
It was the wetsuit photo that sent her Instagram followers into a frenzy, but how does weather guru Jane Bunn feel about the ‘Bond girl’ moment? The Channel 7 star has opened up about her cult following and her thoughts on people getting tattoos of her face.
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It is clear skies ahead for Channel 7’s Melbourne weather presenter, Jane Bunn.
Bunn already had a cult following when she joined the Seven News Melbourne team five years ago, but her profile has grown significantly as she brought her passion for weather to a metropolitan audience. Having recently celebrated her 40th birthday, Bunn sat down to talk about that fan tattoo, managing social media, how a love of skiing set her on her true career path, taking risks and setting goals, and her Bond girl moment.
FIONA BYRNE: Happy Birthday, Jane. You celebrated your 40th birthday on August 2. Any thoughts on that milestone?
JANE BUNN: It turned out I ended up getting a birthday month. There was a holiday and then dinner with friends and dinner with my family and this went on throughout the month of August. When I turned 30 that freaked me out. I was asking myself where I was in my life, was I as far along as I wanted to be or had I not achieved as much as I wanted to, so when I turned 30 I almost had a little mini crisis. When I was approaching 40 I thought, ‘I don’t want to go through that again,’ and the big questions of have you achieved everything you want to achieve and are you where you need to be at this age where starting to creep into the back of the mind and so I went, ‘right, I am going to do this the best possible way, I am going to go on holidays for my birthday.’ It was the perfect thing to do because you are away from your natural environment and I was just able to celebrate and have a good time. The holiday was in two parts. The first bit was with lots of friends (in Noosa) so I felt that was the celebratory party and the next bit was to an island just with Michael, my husband.
FB: You posted an image of yourself in a wetsuit during your birthday holiday that got a lot of attention. Was that your Bond girl moment?
JB: That is a nice way to describe it. I was on holiday, tuned out and disconnected from everything. If you can imagine my mindset, I was not even present. I took a snap. I put it up (on Instagram). It was fine. I was concerned about my hair because I had just been snorkelling. I got a text when I got back to shore saying, ‘there is some weird stuff going on with that picture, let’s just crop it.’ I thought, ‘what are you talking about?’ then I looked at it and went, ‘Oh, I did not even notice they were in shot.’ When I got back (to Melbourne) and saw the headlines about it I was like, ‘are you serious, is there nothing else going on in the world.’ I did not even look at the comments that were being made (about the photo).
FB: How do you manage your social media given that you have a fan base that is very interested in you, not just your weather reports.
JB: It is like I now have this trained eye. I will literally skim comments (on her social media platforms) so fast and all I am looking for is a weather question, as in has someone asked something that is legitimately about the weather that I can help with. If someone asks me a question on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram that is weather related I will answer it, if I can.
The rest I don’t even see it. I will answer your question if it is clean. If it is all above board, I am very happy to answer your question, if it is not, I am not going to give you that time. I think over the years I have come up with some ways of not going nuts about it (social media). I don’t look at it late at night before I go to sleep. I put a self ban on myself and when I do read them, as I said, I just skim them, rather than focusing on every single one.
FB: You have for a number of years had online fan groups for whom you are a modern day pin up and weather guru. How does this sit with you?
JB: I still find it peculiar, I think I will always find it peculiar. I am 40 and there is confidence, but there is always that lack of confidence that is in the back of your mind, it is always there. Also it is not my 20-year-old body anymore. I grew up doing ballet six days a week and I was a very different person back then, I looked very different back then. If I look at my life I was incredibly skinny when I finished high school, essentially because I just danced all the time, but I had really bad hair and no make-up. If you look at my life now I have amazing wardrobe thanks to Ben (Amery, stylist) and I have hair and make-up everywhere I go. I am much happier with photos of me now that I am older because I understand how this body works and what we can do with it or can’t do with it. It is almost like when I am in (Channel 7) hair and make-up I am Jane Bunn where as when I am not in hair and make-up I am Jane. That can be two different people; one is really confident and one is on the couch in trackies.
FB: How did your love of skiing lead you to being a meteorologist?
JB: I started ballet at age five and the last full time classes I had were in my first year at university. That was a big portion of my life that was devoted to it and I loved it.
I was also drama captain (at Brighton’s Firbank Girls Grammar School) in year 12 and did plays and musicals, so that was where most people thought I was going to go (career wise) and that is where I thought I was going to go. But then I did an IT class at school (in the late 1990s) and it made sense to me. I went on to study IT at RMIT but quickly discovered that was not for me. I worked as a secretary and a receptionist until I was about 22 or 23 until I realised I was procrastinating with those jobs by looking at the weather. I would find I was looking at snow cameras on the internet working out when I was next going skiing.
Eventually it clicked that studying the weather was what I wanted to be doing. I went back to uni and did a Bachelor of Science at Monash, but prior to that I had to do physics and maths at summer school to be ready to start my degree. Taking that time off from study and then going back to uni meant I was so much more present. I was more interested in what I was doing, my time meant something now and I knew at the end I would be applying to the Weather Bureau to be a forecaster, so there was a goal. I knew where I was heading and the three years flew by.
FB: And you ended up with a ski run, The Bunn Run, named after you at Mt Buller.
JB: It is still there. I love that so many people take a selfie and put it on social media and tag me. It is so lovely.
FB: What spurred you to move from the Bureau of Meteorology to TV?
JB: I was getting annoyed. At the bureau, it is a scientific profession and you have to use particular language, so you spend all day working out how best to describe the weather situation and you would put that out there and then the media would take those words, not like the way they were said and change them around and change the meaning. There was one woman on radio who drove me nuts because fine and mostly sunny is a forecast, fine means it is dry and mostly sunny means lots of sunshine so it is a really nice day, and she would change it to mostly fine which means she has put some sort of wet weather in there.
I finally went, ‘that is it’ I am going to find a way to do this myself. My entire purpose is to ensure the right message is getting through to people about the weather.
FB: What did you do?
JB: I contacted The Weather Channel and was offered a role as their morning meteorologist.
I was there for a year but it was not an on-screen role and I wanted to be the one passing that weather message on to viewers.
FB: That opportunity came in 2009 with WIN TV in Ballarat.
JB: Yes and it was wonderful. I learnt so much there. I was there for five years.
I eventually set my sights on something a bit bigger. I actually left WIN without having a gig to go to. Michael and I talked about it and we went, ‘whatever happens will happen.’
So I put myself out there and it happened. I can’t describe what it was like to get the call from Seven.
FB: You joined the Seven News Melbourne team as Weather Presenter in November 2014. Is it true you were courted by another network last year?
JB: I have a three-year contract (with Seven signed in November 2018). The fact that Channel 7 have enough confidence to have me around for that long is absolutely thrilling. I think someone came (from a rival network) to see whether I would want to do what they did and I looked at and said, ‘thank you, but no, I like what I am doing here.’ 6pm news is for me.
FB: I hear you are also a bit of a foodie, something that fits well with your role on Seven’s The Great Weekend.
JB: In my downtime what I like to do is literally eat food and drink. Nothing makes me happier than that. The fact that there is a show that has been created and I am the “food expert” on is perfect. I certainly don’t feel like a food expert, but I love food, I love cooking at home and love exploring Melbourne’s food scene.
FB: Do you ever worry about your appearance?
JB: I worry about that all the time. It is something I am constantly aware of.
I will super indulge at times and then at other times we are having toast and soup tonight or ‘tonight is vegetables.’ I try to have a balance.
Even if I don’t have time for a work out because of my schedule that day I will always go for a walk because I feel I have to at least do that to have some movement going on.
FB: Viewers probably feel like they know a lot about you, so what is something that they don’t know? Do you have a secret talent?
JB: I have a secret untalent. I can’t open a bottle of champagne. I have never done it. I hope that I never will. This is going to sound really sexist, but I see it as a boy’s job for some reason.
FB: What advice would you give someone starting out on their career?
JB: Work out what it is that you love. Then work out what that job is or make that job happen and you will be successful and happy.
FB: I know you are a goal setter so what is the next goal in your sights?
JB: I hope that I will get to be part of the 6pm news here at Seven until I am in my 70s, if that was an option. If they will have me, I will be here for as long as I physically, possibly can because this is the most wonderful role and a great team to be a part of. I am also working with some people on Jane’s Weather. It is an app that is currently being developed and the idea is that it will bring together the best weather information and present it in the best possible way.
FB: Finally Jane, you famously have a fan in Geelong who had your image tattooed on his rib cage. Have you met him?
JB: I have not been in contact with him, but if I do run into him I am going to want to see it.
I am glad he has it on his rib cage not somewhere else. I was in two minds about that (tattoo). I was incredibly flattered. I was like, ‘oh my god, you have done that? That is amazing,’ and other times like, ‘OK, you have done that.’ Same sort of words, but two very different meanings and thoughts. My friends actually got that copied and got tattoos made and they all wore them for my birthday as a surprise. And they got T-shirts made too.
I am just glad they (the tattoos) washed off later.
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