Matt talks About Love For Olivia
Matt Lattanzi has revealed that the strain of helping wife Olivia Newton-John battle breast cancer, coupled with great loneliness, caused him to have a breakdown. “I went to the doctor I got therapy,” says Matt, whose collapse came soon after he arrived in Australia earlier this year to star in the soap Paradise Beach. “I guess I had been bottling it all up,” he says. “I had to keep up a brave front and suddenly, while I was by myself, it all broke. All my defences came down. I would suddenly burst into tears for no apparent reason. You’re crawling on the ground asking the Creator for help. I was depressed and very anxious and I finally got some professional help in Australia.”
It is now a year since singer and actress Olivia (right, with Matt) was told she had breast cancer. After surgery on the cancer she went through seven months of painful chemotherapy. But the still beautiful Livvy, who has now joined Matt on location on the Gold Coast with their daughter Chloe, has come through remarkably well. A delighted Matt reports: “There’s no sign of cancer and Livvy’s completely recovered. It’s been a terrible time for our family,” he adds, “but it has forced us all to examine and drastically change our lifestyle. And for the better. “Livvy was a pillar of strength and an example to me. She was the one who was the level-headed optimist.”
Now, Matt says, Livvy is happier than ever. She’s been living a “very normal lifestyle” on their NSW property two hours’ drive from the Paradise Beach’s set. In pursuit of a simpler and healthier lifestyle, the couple have put up their two American homes for sale and are looking for something out of the city. They hope to spend half of their time in Australia and the other half in the U.S.
Matt says their changing lifestyle was long overdue. “I was quite caught up in the material world,” he says. “Sometimes it takes a slap in the face from mother nature to make you realise that the most important things in life are family and friends, and things like picnics in the backyard.” The 34-year-old American actor and builder has just quit Paradise Beach, in which he plays jetsetting photographer Cooper Hart. “I’m on this show for 100 episodes and I finish in a week or so,” Matt says.
In the new year he and Livvy will work on a series of documentaries for the Beyond 2000 group about the relationship between man and animals.