Olivia's hopeful message
A strong Olivia Newton-John speaks out about moving on with her life after the disappearance of her long-time love Patrick McDermott
Editor's note
- some of this article appears to be based on Olivia’s interview on Good Morning America.
A heartbroken Olivia Newton-John has moved forward with her life and is singing again following the mysterious disappearance of her lover Patrick McDermott. Talking for the first time since Patrick went missing Olivia says she has to “walk the walk of everyday life and her career to help get life back to normal”.
But 48-year-old cameraman Patrick-who vanished on June 30 after boarding a fishing boat in California -is always in her thoughts. Holding back the tears, 57-year-old Olivia declares: “I love him very much and it’s hard for me to talk about. There’s an investigation under way, and as you can imagine it’s an extremely difficult thing to go through.”
“It’s really, really painful for me, and really, really personal.”
“Patrick has a young son, so we still hold out hope and pray that he will come back. But pain makes you grow, even though it’s difficult at the time. You look back and go: ‘Wow, I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t gone through that’ It’s still very much a mystery and speculation is rife. But I have chosen not to buy into the speculation just because we live in a climate where everyone thinks they have to know. It’s such a personal thing for me and his family, and I have decided not to discuss the details.”
Olivia, best known for her 1978 movie Grease, met Patrick in 1996 while filming a commercial, shortly after she divorced Matt Lattanzi, her husband of 11 years and father of her daughter Chloe, 19. They had lived together on and off at her $10 million Malibu estate ever since.
After he vanished, Olivia planned to delay her US tour and the release of her album Stronger Than Before, benefiting breast cancer awareness, until Patrick was found. But she’s since had a change of heart, and is now touring the US and conducting TV interviews.
“I really thought of not doing it, but the album is about going through difficulty and getting through it,” said the Australian superstar, a breast cancer survivor for 13 years.
“I also know that Patrick would want me to do it because he believed in the cause and following through with your commitments. He was a very hard-working, committed person, so I made the decision to do it.”
Olivia says she was “just kind of frozen” when she first learned of Patrick’s disappearance while visiting Australia.
“I didn’t think I was ever going to sing again, but I am singing again. You have to move on.”
Among the theories surrounding the mystery are that Patrick committed suicide, or faked his own death. For six years, he had been beset by financial woes, and even declared bankruptcy in 2000. Patrick also had trouble keeping up with child support payments to his ex-wife, actress Yvette Nipar, mother of his 13-year-old son Chance. She’d taken him to court in April over late payments.
By admitting she still loves Patrick, Olivia is pouring cold water on comments by her nephew, Emerson Newton-John, that she had broken up with Patrick months before he went missing.
Last week, Emerson appeared to be reversing his remarks while telling a US interviewer that Olivia is beginning to accept that Patrick is gone forever.
“I think Olivia is getting emotionally hit with it now as much as the day she found out about it.”
By Drew Mackenzie & Matthew Denby
A Healthy Approach
Olivia became an unintentional champion for the fight against breast cancer, after she was forced to go public about her disease in the early 1990s.
Olivia, who has been cancer free since 1993, says: “One of the tabloid press got hold of the information I guess there were people in the radiology departments.”
“They had called me and said: ‘We’re going to print this big story.’ By that time I hadn’t really even told a lot of my family. I thought that rather than have it come out as some scary thing and I’m going to die, it would be better to come out.”
“And, actually, it was very healthy, because it’s getting it off your chest.”
Olivia has been promoting breast cancer awareness with her Liv Kit and her work with the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Centre in Melbourne.