'I WAS SO EMOTIONAL'

Why Aussie icon Olivia Newton-John had to come home

- Stephen Downie

From her home on the other side of the world, Olivia Newton-John watched aghast as this season’s deadly fires destroyed huge chunks of her homeland. “I felt sick,” the 71-year-old singer-actress tells WHO of learning of the Australian bushfires from California. “I couldn’t watch it, in fact, because I was so emotional.”

News of this season’s devastating fires, which killed 33 people, razed more than 2000 homes and wiped out millions of our native fauna, was “too intense”, she says. “I felt so sad hearing about people losing their homes and the animals that couldn’t get away and had no way of knowing what was going on. It really broke my heart.”

She wanted to do something – anything – but didn’t know where to start. “It’s a weird feeling,” Newton-John concedes. “You feel helpless.” Then she received a message from Barry Gibb, of the Bee Gees, who wanted to know whether a relief concert was being planned. “It was quite incredible how the fires touched people everywhere, she says. She called concert promoter Paul Dainty and slowly the Fire Fight Australia concert started taking shape.