Brave Olivia finds new strength
Once again, Australia's sweetheart has had her life touched by tragedy. But, while Olivia faces the agonising wait for news of her lost lover, the songstress is coping with her grief by throwing herself into her work
Brave Olivia Newton-John has astounded friends and family with her amazing strength, as the mystery surrounding the disappearance of her boyfriend Patrick McDermott deepens.
Insiders say the resilient 56-year-old singer has been boosted by the support she’s received from her daughter Chloe, who has been by her side since the news broke.
To help her cope, Olivia has also been using a process called mental imaging to make herself feel that the man she lovingly calls Pat is safe. It’s a psychological concept in which people can visualise good things happening to them, it’s a process which Olivia used when she beat breast cancer.
After escaping her nightmare with a break at an ultra-private southern California health spa, Olivia has cancelled two US TV interviews that were scheduled to promote her new CD and is in constant contact with famed private investigator Gavin De Becker, who she has hired to search for answers.
The star was naturally devastated when the dashing Patrick, 48, a film electrician and photographer, vanished without a trace on June 30, after boarding an overnight fishing boat in a Californian coastal town. Despite some passengers claims he was seen leaving the boat on its return, the police aren’t ruling anything out.
The couple had been together for nine years after meeting on the set of a commercial. And although he maintains a modest rented home in the middle-class LA suburb of Van Nuys, he mostly lived with Olivia at her $10 million five-storey Malibu mansion.
Now Chloe, 19, an aspiring singer whose father is Olivia’s ex-husband Matt Lattanzi, is helping the desperately worried superstar overcome her grief, a family insider reveals.
“She spends as much time comforting her mother as possible, helping her though this ordeal,” says the source.
“Chloe’s very supportive even though she’s hurting herself. She’s known Pat since she was 10 and they’re very close. He’s like a second father to her.”
Patrick, once an actor who had a role in the hit movie The French Connection, has a 13-year-old son, Chance, from a previous marriage. “Olivia treated Chance like the son she never had,” says our source. “And Chloe and Chance got along like normal siblings, loving each other sometimes and fighting at others.”
Those close to Patrick say he loved his son dearly, and find it hard to believe that he would ever choose to leave him.
“He’d never do anything to be away from Chance,” says a neighbour, Kathleen Padden. “He is his sunshine, his moon and his stars. It’s not at all like him to disappear.”
After Patrick failed to attend a family function a week after the boat’s return, his anxious ex-wife, actress Yvette Nipar, who recently guest-starred in an episode of CSI Miami, called police. “Yvette and his son are very upset,” says Patrick’s landlord, Zachary Nemzer, who confirms his tenant has not paid rent since June 30.
Yvette and Patrick are said to have had a rocky relationship, and according to a US TV report, Patrick appeared depressed on the boat trip, and allegedly told a crew member that he was having alimony payment problems.
Patrick pays $1000 a month in child support and recently filed for bankruptcy, claiming his most valuable possession is a Toyota Forerunner valued at $6000.
Another car - his silver Hyundai - was found in the marina car park and his personal belongings, including a wallet and fishing gear, were then found on the boat. The Coast Guard is treating his disappearance as a missing persons