Kylie Queen of the World Read online

  Kylie’s first real love, Jason Sean Donovan, was born on 1 June 1968 to Terrance, an actor, and Sue McIntosh, a newsreader. Unlike Kylie, who had a very stable family background, Jason came from a broken home. His parents parted while he was still very young and from then on he spent most of his time with his father.

  Like Kylie, however, Jason started learning his trade while still a toddler, encouraged by his father, just as Kylie had been by her mother. He started taking piano lessons very early on and joined the Australian Choir at the age of five. By the time he was 11 he had taken part in Skyways, where he met Kylie: ‘The first time I met Kylie Minogue, I thought, what a small person – and she still is!’ he recalled as a Neighbours star. Soon after that, the young Donovan made appearances in I Can Jump Puddles and Golden Pennies. Meanwhile, he was at school at Spring Road School in Malvern, where he was brought up, followed by a period at De La Salle, a Catholic high school. He spent much of his youth following his father around film sets, and show business was firmly in the Donovan blood, but Jason actually turned down the role of Danny in Neighbours in order to finish school. Shortly afterwards he was offered the part of Scott, and televisual history was made. And very soon after that, the two co-stars had fallen in love.

  Kylie was later to dismiss their time together as unimportant, a fling between teenage sweethearts, but the relationship lasted for nearly four years and was initially extremely happy for both of them. The two became a couple in 1986, both happily convinced that the other was ‘the one’. But with hindsight, there were already clear differences between them that might have indicated that the relationship was doomed from the start. Yes, they were both blonde, cute, the same age and both starred in Neighbours and became singers, but that is where the similarities ended. For a start, Jason did not start taking drugs in the 1990s when he tired of his clean-living image, as is often thought to be the case: rather, he smoked dope regularly even back then. Ironically, given that her next boyfriend was to be Michael Hutchence, Kylie hated his habit and feared that the press would run with the story.

  Moreover, although it was Jason who was first cast as a star in Neighbours, with Kylie only brought in initially for a few weeks, it was really Kylie who was the ambitious one. Kylie has a tendency to rely on her menfolk for moral support, with the result that she is often seen as less independent than she really is, but behind that frail image, there lurks a soul of steel. She is ambitious, she always has been ambitious and she has always gone all out to get what she wants. The same can not be said of Jason. Would he have ever left Ramsay Street when his fame was at its height? he was once asked. ‘Go and live in a caravan by the ocean with the surfboards tied to the roof? Yeah, I’d have loved that,’ came the reply. ‘I could have been very happy living like that and waiting for the surf. Maybe I will, one day.’

  Kylie, who was present at the time, added, ‘Yes, that’s Jason for you.’ But it certainly wasn’t Kylie. She wasn’t giving up that hard-won success without a struggle and hanging about waiting for the surf was a long way off her agenda. ‘Just don’t say I look as though I’ve spent a lot of time outdoors or in the sun,’ she said once, ‘because I’ve spent most of the last couple of years in some studio or another.’

  She did have time for the odd holiday, however, and one of her breaks led to rumours that Kylie and Jason were even closer off screen than they were on. In 1988, the couple were pictured on holiday in Bali. Kylie was topless. ‘Ah ha!’ said the world’s press. ‘So they really are a couple!’ Jason immediately went on the defensive. ‘Kylie can still be my friend without being my lover,’ he argued unconvincingly.

  ‘We went on holidays together because my mates didn’t have any time off, but Kylie had the same schedule as me,’ Jason continued. ‘No offence to Kylie, but if I was to come home and see her every night and be with her 24 hours a day, I couldn’t cope for very long. It’s not the way I’d like things to turn out and I think Kylie feels the same. It’s hard enough working that closely together on screen.’

  Their fellow holiday makers were unimpressed by such arguments. ‘They were touching and kissing each other all the time,’ said one. ‘They weren’t trying to keep their feelings for each other a secret. They only emerged from their love nest when the sun was shining.’

  But still the ‘are they, aren’t they’ speculation continued, despite the fact that the two were by now to all intents and purposes living together in Jason’s place in Melbourne. Looking back now, it is almost inevitable that the two stars would have become a couple, given that both were single, because they really did do absolutely everything together as well as holidaying: they filmed Neighbours, they opened supermarkets, they did promotional work, they dealt with sudden and unexpected adulation and as Kylie herself said recently, they were the only two people who could know what they were both going through.

  They had very little spare time but what there was of it was spent chez Jason, snatching a few rare moments of relaxation; the rest of their lives was a non-stop cycle of work, which was only to intensify as both began singing careers. And still they denied everything – until finally, worn out by the constant denials, Kylie let her secret slip in an interview with Woman’s Own in September 1988 after she had left Neighbours. ‘It’s quite true,’ she said. ‘He’s my boyfriend and our relationship is very special. But I don’t feel it’s anyone else’s business. I don’t see why I have to share everything. I tell everyone I’m still living with Mum and Dad. That’s true because I still take my washing home and it’s nice to have a decent cooked meal every now and then.’

  And so why, asked the magazine, had the couple denied their relationship for so long? ‘It’s a good thing to have a little mystery in your life – everybody likes a bit of that,’ maintained Kylie, who then went on to display rather more guile than usual: ‘If everyone knew about Jason and me it would spoil the mystique and there wouldn’t be quite the same interest in us.’ And how did she feel now that she had left the show? ‘I miss being with Jason – that’s one of the reasons I don’t like going on long tours,’ she revealed – before adding that marriage to her erstwhile co-star was indeed a possibility although that could be ‘10 or 15 years away’. Bad tactics. If you want to marry someone who has not yet proposed, don’t admit it – a lesson Kylie has well and truly learned in later years. Kylie, despite her international fame, though, was still young and inexperienced in many of the ways of the world – and so what could be more natural than admitting to a few of her hopes and dreams?

  For his part, Jason denied everything. ‘It’s just not true that we’re going out together or that she’s my girlfriend. We’re good mates and I enjoy her company, but that’s as far as it goes,’ he declared, somewhat ungallantly. ‘I don’t want to get in to a big row over this and therefore I won’t offend Woman’s Own and say they’re wrong. But the fact is I see Kylie as a best friend and not a lover. I really enjoy her company and miss the fun we used to have together on Neighbours. But she just isn’t my girlfriend. There’s no one in my life right now. For one thing, there just isn’t the time. And I know I haven’t met the right person. It doesn’t make me unusual in any way. A lot of people of my age don’t want to settle down at this stage.’

  Perhaps, but with the benefit of hindsight, this might have been Jason’s major mistake as far as Kylie was concerned. He had publicly denied their love affair after she had admitted it, thereby for the first time raising doubts as far as Kylie was concerned as to whether the relationship was going to last. There was still a year to go before Kylie left Jason for Michael Hutchence but Jason – and Jason alone – had put a real dampener on the proceedings. Many people who have had to keep their relationship a secret crave public recognition from their loved ones, and Kylie was clearly no different from anyone else.

  And certainly, at the time, she was devastated. A member of her management staff said, ‘She spoke from the heart when she said in Britain that Jason was her boyfriend and she hoped to marry him. Everyone, in
cluding Kylie, is stunned by what Jason has said. She is very hurt by it all. As soon as she gets a chance, she’ll be talking to him about their future.’

  It would seem that she did exactly that. Although Jason still would not publicly acknowledge the relationship, by November 1988, their secret was now widely known – to the extent that they were even admitting to close friends that to all intents and purposes they lived together. Not only that: they were planning a duet, ‘Especially For You’, which went on to reach number one. ‘The single should be out by the end of the year and we’re both hoping for a Christmas hit,’ said Jason coyly at the time. ‘It would be great to come up with a classic like “White Christmas”.’

  Kylie and Jason had both already started on their singing careers, of which much more in the next chapter, and so it seemed obvious that the perfect couple from Neighbours should become the perfect couple as a singing duo. And they were: the song and its accompanying video were as schmaltzy as they come. It largely features Kylie and Jason wandering around separate parts of a city until finally meeting up on stage (very apt for their relationship, some might say) where they finished up singing the song together. Kylie looks as if she’s singing her heart out, while Jason looks as if he can barely stop himself from giggling, but the single, if not in the “White Christmas” league, was a huge success, effortlessly reaching the top of the charts.

  ‘Filming the video was no different: we were best friends and we did go out at that time,’ said Kylie many years later when it was she, rather than Jason, who was keen to downplay the relationship. ‘We were the only two people who could really understand what the other was going through, so it was kind of as if we were childhood sweethearts. There was no difference whether we were on a set [or] opening a supermarket – we did everything together. Making the video was just another day.’

  The song, like all of Kylie and Jason’s early work, came out under the protective wings of Stock, Aitken and Waterman, despite the fact that none of the three were Neighbours watchers. Indeed, when Mike Stock attempted to watch the wedding episode, he couldn’t bear to sit the whole thing through. On top of that, it was not the producers or even the couple themselves who wanted to do a record. Their fans had begged the duo to record a duet. ‘Lots of kids kept asking when we were going to do it. It was their suggestion,’ said Mike Stock in an interview three months after the single was released.

  ‘Then at the end of November when we saw it was the favourite to be the Christmas number one with William Hill, and we hadn’t even written one, much less recorded it, it seemed like time to do something,’ he continued. ‘None of us was terribly keen on the idea because it sounded a bit too much like cashing in, and far too sugary for comfort. So we decided not to do it. Then we were told it had pre-sale orders of 250,000 and began to feel that the market was telling us something. Kylie and Jason had come out of the closet about their relationship, so that wasn’t a problem, but they were concerned whether it was the right thing for their careers and wondered if it would be a hit.’

  ‘Can you imagine that?’ Pete Waterman interjected. ‘It came out and got to number one. The romance between Charlene and Scott in the series and Jason and Kylie off screen was the thing that helped to sell it. There’s something very wholesome about both relationships and I think that people like that and enjoy seeing them together.’

  With that the interview took off into the realms of fantasy and it is amusing, touching or downright sad to read it in the light of later events. But this is now and that was then. What if the two got married, the producers were asked.

  ‘Fabulous!’ said Pete, enthusiastically. ‘They’d be all over the front pages of every newspaper in Europe for weeks. That would really do something for the record sales. Then, when they had a baby, that would get them even more publicity and we could do a record with all three of them together! Think of the sales: Jason, Kylie and the baby, it would be marvellous. All publicity is good publicity,’ he went on. ‘Divorce might be a disaster, but if Jason was cheating on the side, that would cause even more of a sensation. Yes, Kylie and Jason getting married would be very good news. Who knows, maybe they will, soon!’

  Jason’s singing career, like Kylie’s, was taking off and in March 1989 he announced that he, too, was quitting Neighbours, an announcement that coincided with the news that his single ‘Too Many Broken Hearts’ had topped the charts within two weeks of its release. ‘For me it’s like a new beginning. It was pure coincidence,’ said an ecstatic Jason. ‘I never planned it to happen on the same day, but it has. I’m not getting out because I’m sick of the show – it’s been fantastic doing it. It’s just that I feel I’ve fulfilled that part of me as far as acting is concerned. When you are only 20, there’s plenty more out there to do.’

  Inevitably, however, a backlash had begun. Negative voices in the music industry were sniping that neither Kylie nor Jason possessed any real talent as singers, and it was only because they had become famous in a soap and were then successfully packaged up and presented to the world that they had achieved so much success. The couple’s supporters hit back, and one of them, both career-wise and on a personal basis, was Kylie’s younger sister Dannii, who denied that the young actors were packaged into being pop stars. ‘Sure you’ve got to have a good song and video, have the right look and then be marketed properly,’ she said. ‘But you do have to be talented. Kylie and Jason haven’t been packaged. They know what they want and are serious about their careers. Jason is such a nice guy and he’s really proved himself and showed he can last. Who would have thought he and Kylie would be so popular?’

  And still Jason and Kylie played cat and mouse games with the press. That summer the two were living together in London and yet despite the fact that neither had anything more to do with Neighbours, the coyness about the relationship continued. This might, perhaps, have been a sign that ultimately both knew it was doomed to failure, but they seemed happy enough for the time being – when anyone could get them to admit that they were a couple, that is.

  One photographer was tipped off about the fact that they were living together in Kensington Gate, a very upmarket area of London, and waited for days before he finally saw the two of them together: ‘On the occasion they did leave together, they were very lovey-dovey,’ he said. ‘They walked hand in hand along the street, seeming not to have a care in the world. Although they had gone to extraordinary lengths to hide their true identities, they could have been any young couple. When I took the pictures, they didn’t seem too pleased to see me. But while Jason got a little upset, Kylie took it all in her stride.’

  Those extraordinary lengths referred to the fact that Jason and Kylie were deliberately changing their appearance, with Kylie scraping her then curly hairdo back into a ponytail and Jason combing his hair over his forehead; both wore sunglasses and usually left the house separately, with a bodyguard in tow. The local residents were taken aback when they were alerted to the presence of their famous neighbours. ‘We hardly see them. I didn’t even realise it was Jason Donovan,’ commented one.

  Finally, the couple really did come clean – again – although Kylie attempted to explain just what had made them so coy for so long. ‘Everyone believes we are and I suppose it’s quite obvious, but no one can be 100 per cent sure, can they?’ she asked. ‘If they knew all about us, where we slept, what we did together, wouldn’t it spoil the mystery? Also, the fact that everyone wonders about us creates a good deal of interest. If we told everything, it would create a great buzz and then nothing more to say. It would spoil a lot of fun. Just the same, I don’t really think it’s anyone’s business, either. Our relationship is very special and precious to me. Because I have so little time for anything else apart from work, and people are watching me all the time, wanting to know what I eat and what my favourite colour is, what I like and don’t like, there’s almost nothing left of me that people don’t know. So I think it’s important to set part of my life aside. That part is Jason.’

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nbsp; And she admitted that it was difficult having to spend so much time apart, now that both were travelling around the world to promote their careers. ‘I really miss not being with him,’ she said. ‘I miss his warmth, sense of humour and I miss not being able to talk to him except by phone. We were friends before anything else and I suppose it’s one of the things that makes our relationship special.’ And of their joint stage appearances? ‘This is not something we’ll be doing very often,’ Kylie said. ‘Jason has his career and I have mine and we both want to keep them separate. Just the same, it’s very nice to have the opportunity to spend some time with him.

  ‘I find I do miss Jason and I get quite lonely,’ she admitted. ‘But for the moment, it’s something I have to accept. I do miss out on some things my old friends can enjoy, but then I’ve also experienced a great deal they’ll never have the chance to go through. In spite of what people may think, show business was never the most important thing in my life and it still isn’t. Nor do I believe my success will last indefinitely. People will tire of me, so in the meantime I want to enjoy it.’

  As for marriage, Kylie seemed to have learned that it was better to play her cards close to her chest, to Jason as well as the rest of the world. ‘Well, yes, one day,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t want to do it now because I’d have to face all the problems Charlene and Scott have gone through, which seems to make it so tough having got married so young. I’m not in any kind of hurry.’

  Jason was a little more coy. ‘A lot of people get us muddled up with Charlene and Scott,’ he said, ‘and we’re really quite different in every way.’