Kylie. Julie Aspinall
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.’
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.’
Ironically, given that it was Kylie who was finally to end the relationship, Jason was adopting an increasingly cavalier attitude towards his girlfriend of three years’ standing. There were reports that he had been flirting with other women behind Kylie’s back. More ironically still, the fact that Jason had followed Kylie and had now also become a pop star made matters still worse. By 1990, the presence of each was required in different parts of the world, making their enforced absences from one another even longer. And still Jason didn’t seem to see the danger of such an arrangement. ‘Kylie was all for me having a singing career,’ he said brightly at the time. But friends of the couple were more cautious. Jason was set to spend much of the year in London, while Kylie divided her time between Australia and the United States.
‘It’s going to be hard when they are on opposite sides of the world,’ warned a friend. ‘They are used to being apart for weeks but this will be a real test of their love. Kylie may follow Jason to London but that seems unlikely now. Besides, even if she does, promoting their careers all around the world will keep them apart. They are both very ambitious and getting to the top means almost everything. Kylie will be spending a lot of time in America. That is where Stock, Aitken and Waterman want her to be a big star. They are both attractive. They would have no trouble finding other partners. Jason has already seen other girls behind Kylie’s back. I can’t see him living like a monk.’ In fact, it was Kylie who eventually found another partner first – someone as different from the squeaky-clean Jason Donovan as it was possible to be.
Jason’s career has not always run smoothly since then. Now settled in London – like Kylie – he went on to have a string of hits but then made the unwise decision to sue the magazine The Face, which falsely alleged that he was gay. Jason won the case but lost an enormous amount of goodwill in the industry and has spent years fighting back since then.
After starring in the beginning of the 1990s in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, he has had a lower profile than Kylie, although he is happily living with production assistant Angela Balloch and their two children. Rather poignantly, he gave an interview some years ago in which he confessed, ‘I wonder if there is anything more for me.’ In 1998, Kylie was asked how she felt about such a comment. ‘As a friend of Jason’s, as long as he’s happy and healthy – I sound like my mother – then that’s brilliant. I’m not sure where he wants to go, what his direction is. For every end there’s a beginning and it might be the end of one thing, of making pop records or being in Joseph, but he has the potential to do so many other things.’ Did she feel sorry for him? ‘No, I wouldn’t feel sorry for him, because that would be negating what I’ve just said,’ she replied. ‘I think it’s just change. I don’t know. I just believe he will find a place where he wants to be.’
As for Jason, he does seem to have a more settled life these days than he did during his difficult patch in the mid-1990s. And of his relationship with Kylie? His verdict is simple. ‘She is definitely one of the great love affairs of my life.’
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