“I started performing a bit more. I’d always been performing through all of this in different theatre troops and started up women’s cabarets and events plus doing my solo work. I ended up getting a job in a cafe in Byron and also at a herb nursery supporting adults with intellectual abilities. I kept that for about 4 years. That was great job with lovely people and then I just kept performing.
The father of my first 2 daughters, we never actually got married per se but I always say he was my husband. I think when you have a couple of kids with someone, he was my de facto husband. That was sort of a strange time. It was a difficult time. He was a heroin addict and I met him when he’d just come out of the Buttery when he was clean. It sort of went bad again and wasn’t the easiest of relationships. I got pregnant, we had the baby and he was really fun. It was weirdly fun though. He sort of lived a life of partying and he did for a long time. His brother was Michael Hutchence so I suddenly had this life of living in poverty and addiction one minute and the next minute a limo would turn up and we were going somewhere fabulous to a concert and staying at Palm Beach. I didn’t really enjoy the way my life could change like that. It was an interesting time.
Our relationship sort of deteriorated about 7 months after Michael died. There was a lot of pressure all round. His using went out of control and it was such a difficult time. A lot of intense emotion on top of his family, us living in a small town, the addiction issue and the grief of Michael.
We actually get on pretty well now which is nice and to his credit he never pulled any custody stuff with me ever. He just believed I was a better parent.
My second husband Russ and I met not long after I separated from Rhett. It was great for a while, we had a son Charlie and he took on my 2 girls as his own. When we finally separated we did 50 / 50 and let the kids work it out. He was such a good parent and I couldn’t take that away from the kids. That was really hard, the separating and watching the impact on the kids. I then realised that if you don’t turn it into a war, it’s ok. It didn’t need to be a war. That worked.
Now I’m with John who is my husband and we have Ivy. She’s nearly 11. I wouldn’t say I’m great at relationships but I would say I give it a good crack. I wouldn’t say anything negative about my ex partners. I really love them, I had children with them. They had problems, we had problems and I had problems. We all had complex backgrounds and when you bring people who have had quite a few traumas in their lives together…. They all start off with great intentions and want to push through. Often it’s bad timing, often it’s people’s inability to deal with those more complex personal issues which we don’t often perceive until far too late down the track. By that stage the damage is done.
We just had my daughters 21st about a month ago in Melbourne and all the Dad’s were there which was really nice. The kids have a diverse family and I would hate it to be like…You can’t come because that persons coming. We all have to be ok. We laugh, we share stories because we share history and it’s a really interesting history. We share children which is even more interesting. I’m glad I can do that. I’ve worked hard not to hang on to stuff. I’m not an angry, bitter person. I can’t hold grudges. We all moved on. It’s too exhausting to hang on to old hurts. I live in a community that I love, I have a great life, heaps of work and I make my own work.
I used to work here in Lismore years ago. I was in the first couple of shows they put on. I always love the whole region because I work around our whole region. I’ve never had that… Oh I just live in this one place thing. My kids went to school in Lismore. All my kids were in Trinity. My son was School Captain at Trinity. That was a proud moment for Mum. The others were on detention but finally I got a School Captain. Doesn’t matter though – you’re proud of them regardless. Even the rebels. I came to Lismore a lot obviously for the last 15 years. I’ve done various performances in Lismore. I remember back in the day when there was a cool restaurant above the Gollan called Tribes. I did a comedy gig there and I loved that and I remember thinking how cool it was. Lismore has some great little spaces and sadly some have closed. To make things happen you need to get around all these fire compliances. It’s hard to create art and be compliant. Today I’m here in Lismore to speak on a panel for Lismore Womens Festival, I’m not sure what it’s about but let’s go.”