I finally feel that I'm free

In a candid interview, Mastermind host Jennifer Byrne talks to Juliet Rieden about the society scandal that rocked her childhood, her royal and rebel ancestors and the sunshine son who convinced his parents to wed.

- Juliet Rieden

Jennifer Byrne is full of beans. Just days ago she arrived back in Sydney from a mammoth adventure on which she and her husband, TV host Andrew Denton, travelled from Bergen to the very tip of Norway and back again.

“It’s a bucket list thing of course, to see the Northern Lights, which means travelling into the cold and dark of the northern winter. Though the real lure for me was we’d be joined by the ‘world’s greatest explorer’ Sir Ranulph Fiennes,” says Jennifer. “His feats are too many to enumerate but include [being] the first man to circumnavigate the earth via the two poles. He cut off his own fingers to counter frostbite and scaled Mount Everest at 64. He’s my older-man crush,” she adds mischievously.

“I saw him at the Opera House. This trip was my chance to get closer. We went from six hours of light a day to just 20 unearthly minutes, sailing past tiny ports illuminated only by twinkling Christmas lights. And the joy! Ran – as he introduces himself, offering his fingerless hand to shake – was every bit the charming gentleman I’d hoped for. A baronet who joined the SAS, now 75 and still adventuring.”

As she talks, Jennifer’s eyes sparkle: adventure travel is her passion, combine it with maestro ‘Ran’ and you have the trip of a lifetime and one that also feels totally in keeping with the host of brainiac TV quiz show Mastermind.

In a few days Jennifer will start filming Celebrity Mastermind, followed by a second season of the SBS quiz show. “I grew up watching it and I’ve played games since I was a kid, so it’s perfect for me,” she quips.