Suzanne Somers: Olivia Newton-John ‘taught me not to be afraid’ of breast cancer
Suzanne Somers said she and Olivia Newton-John belonged to ‘a sisterhood you never want to join’ but that still offers ‘great comfort’
Following the death of Olivia Newton-John in August 2022, Suzanne Somers offered a special tribute to the singer, based on the “sisterhood” they both belonged to: Women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer and lived with the specter of the disease for decades.
“Everyone would want an Olivia Newton-John in their life,” Somers said in an interview with the Daily Mail last year. Somers, who was about to turn 77, died Sunday from breast cancer, a little more than a year after Newton-John’s death.
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Interview by Barbara McMahon Mum’s last words to me, were ‘my sunshine’. Now she’s sent angels to guard me
- Daily Mail
- By Olivia Newton John’s daughter
AN OWL regularly comes and sits quietly outside Chloe Lattanzi’s window, perching itself peacefully for a full hour beside her, before spreading its wings and swooping silently away. ‘I think it’s my mum’s spirit,’ says Chloe, still quietly grief- stricken after the death of her mother, the globally beloved singer and actress Olivia Newton- John, who passed away in August last year aged 73.
‘I believe she’s also shown up as an orb, a floating light in multiple photos,’ Chloe adds. ‘Since she passed, there’s never been a day that I haven’t thought of her.
‘It has been very, very painful, but it’s also been supernatural. She’s put angels around me and shown up in different forms, and that’s very comforting.’
Indeed, Olivia’s determination to comfort her adored only child extended right up to the very last breath she took, before she finally succumbed to the cancer that had spread from her breast to her bones and been a part of her life for 30 years.
‘The last words she said to me were: “My sunshine,” ’ Chloe says.
The 37-year-old, still clearly emotional about the loss of her mother, is speaking as a posthumous album of duets recorded by Olivia — including one featuring mother and daughter — is released this week.
Chloe says she is hoping to follow in her mother’s musical footsteps but, having battled her own demons, she is determined to do it her way.
British-born Olivia, whose parents moved their family to Melbourne, Australia, in 1954 when she was six, was the epitome of sunny optimism.
From her first taste of success in 1974 as Britain’s Eurovision entry (she came fourth, losing to Abba’s Waterloo) to tasting global fame in 1978 as the prim Sandy Olsson to John Travolta’s raunchy bad boy Danny in Grease, she represented a feminine ideal.
Always more than just a performer, Olivia was made a Dame in the Queen’s 2019 Honours List for her work as a cancer campaigner.
Yet despite the reverence with which her mother is remembered, Chloe confesses that the pressure of growing up as the daughter of the infinitely perfect Olivia almost broke her.
Her parents divorced in 1995, when she was aged nine, and the split was brutal. Chloe’s father, actor Matt Lattanzi — 11 years Olivia’s junior, whom she had met when the pair were filming the movie Xanadu — ran off with Chloe’s babysitter. Olivia was then battling breast cancer for the first time.
The publicity Olivia attracted and Press attention surrounding the divorce only made a traumatic time worse for young Chloe — and it had devastating consequences, she admits now.
‘When my parents split up, or when I went through a chubby phase, people were writing about me and having opinions about me without knowing me,’ she says. ‘It was like having that social media experience before social media existed.
‘I went through anorexia, obsessive compulsive disorder and depression. You get sick mentally. You start not to eat, to take drugs and alcohol, try to change yourself.’
Low self-esteem, she said, prompted her to have breast augmentation aged just 18, before then having fillers in her face. This wholesome looking brunette teen became something more akin to an extreme version of a Love Island contestant.
‘[The public attention] definitely had an effect on my psyche. I thought I had to change my authentic self to please others,’ she says.
‘ People are taking pictures of you, so you start to focus on what you look like and try to make sure you are “perfect”.
‘I was lucky to have such a loving mother, but I wouldn’t say it was a healthy way to grow up.’
One can’t help but note that Chloe’s struggles were in marked contrast to her mother’s notoriously clean lifestyle. No doubt her daughter’s travails must have caused the singer considerable pain.
Chloe has previously admitted that ‘being drunk and high became so routine that I would be high in front of my mum — and I don’t think she even noticed because it was such a normal state for me to be in’.
Thankfully, a turning point came in 2013 when Chloe went into rehab for cocaine and alcohol abuse. Healing her addictions, she admits, was a slow process.
‘I’ve been through a lot, and I healed when I addressed old wounds that I hadn’t addressed, and that’s when the depression started to lift, and the anxiety got better. It was when I released all that toxic energy and talked about it.’
SHEwon’t go into detail about what the ‘old wounds’ are but says: ‘Lots of women have been through the same thing, and now I really understand the mind-body-spirit connection and want to be a positive story, an inspiration.’
She adds, smiling: ‘I see myself as an ambassador of light and love and healing.’
Part of her recovery has included removing the filler in her face which made her barely recognisable to friends and family, and must have caused her naturally beautiful mother such distress.
‘I injected all this gunk because I had body dysmorphia. I didn’t have plastic surgery, but I filled up my
face like a balloon and yes, it was horrible,’ Chloe says.
‘When I came out of body dysmorphia, I could finally see myself clearly and I got it removed. I look like me again now. Thank God.’
Luckily, she had largely conquered her demons before her mother’s death, which meant when Olivia’s health took a turn for the worse, her daughter was able to devote herself to helping her.
CHLOEjoined her stepfather, eco- entrepreneur John Easterling, whom her mother had married in 2008 in an Incan spiritual ceremony in Peru) in looking after Olivia, before she died on August 8 last year at her ranch in Santa Ynez, California.
‘I was with Mummy for nearly two years before she died, taking care of her with John,’ says Chloe.
She recently travelled from her home in California to Melbourne to take part in the 10th anniversary of Olivia’s Walk for Wellness, a fundraising walk that raises money for the cancer research and wellness centre set up in the city by her mother.
Today, Chloe says she wants to continue her mother’s work, advocating for cancer research and holistic treatments that can aid recovery. Fascinatingly, she says Olivia never wanted to know her prognosis.
‘Doctors can kill people by saying a person has only three months or six months to live. If you tell someone that, they’re going to start to believe it and prepare to die,’ she says, her voice rising indignation.
‘No one should be given a certain amount of time because nobody really knows.
‘A doctor has power over what they tell someone. The patient sees the doctor as a person of truth and power but a lot of the time they’re wrong.’
Olivia’s first diagnosis with breast cancer came in 1992, when she was just 44. It was to return twice more during her life, yet she remained resolute in the face of such devastating news.
That she was able to battle the disease for so long is something Chloe partly credits to her stepfather.
It was Easterling who helped manage Newton- John’s cancer symptoms with medical marijuana he grew himself. Other holistic treatments helped soothe his wife and control her pain, Chloe says.
‘John’s a medicine man — he’s travelled in the Amazon and learned all about its herbs and medicines, and a lot of the supplements we gave my mum were his supplements and they extended her life for 14 years,’ she says.
Many of the practices Chloe says helped prolong and improve her mother’s quality of life are now offered at Olivia’s wellness centre.
‘It focuses on all the other treatments we need when we are sick, such as art therapy, oncological massage [a lighter form of massage, focused on gently relaxing muscles],
acupuncture, music therapy, talk therapy, getting out into nature or just having a cup of tea with other cancer survivors so you can share experiences,’ says Chloe.
‘My mum knew that having these holistic treatments and not feeling alone can aid in the recovery of cancer patients. There’s data that shows people who attend a wellness centre go into remission more quickly and leave hospital faster.
‘I want to see these wellness centres all around the world, and I have so many ideas of treatments I want to implement.’
But the loss of her mother is clearly still raw. In August this year, around the first anniversary of Olivia’s death, Chloe posted a confessional video online which detailed how she had been suffering from memory loss and struggling to get out of bed.
‘I’ve been neglecting myself, and one of my mum’s biggest messages was to take care of yourself,’ she told her followers. ‘So, I’m going to disappear for three weeks because I’m developing health issues in my mind and body.’
Today she explains: ‘ Grief is a rollercoaster of emotions, but my mum’s fans have been giving me so much love. And love is a frequency. It’s real, tangible energy and millions of people have been sending me love.
‘It’s been a life raft in really dark times. And I’ve spent hours trying to send love back because I’ve been so moved by all the support.
‘This will sound “woo woo” to some people, but millions of people who don’t even know me have surrounded me with this higher level of energy that’s got me through my journey of grief a little more easily.’
That positive energy has also come from her mother’s celebrity friends, including Olivia’s Grease co-star John Travolta.
‘He’s been wonderful,’ says Chloe, who married martial arts trainer John Driskill, in a beach ceremony officiated by her own mother.
Given the huge influence Olivia had on her daughter, one doesn’t have to be a psychologist to see the significance in Chloe choosing to follow in her mother’s footsteps in becoming a musician.
‘Since I was little, I’ve been singing with my mum,’ says Chloe. ‘I have videos of her singing a chorus and my two-year-old self just mimics it right back. I would join her when she was on tour when I was little. It was a part of regular life.
‘I’m quite a shy person, so whenever I would do my vocals [in the studio] I would ask Mummy if I could do them alone because she had perfect pitch and I’d know she could hear if I was slightly off.
‘We’d do it separately and then listen to the end result together.’
This week sees the launch of a second volume of duets, Just The Two Of Us, a posthumous collection Olivia recorded with singers including Dionne Warwick and Marie Osmond during her career — and also features Chloe and her mother singing You Have To Believe, a 2015 dance remake of Olivia’s hit Magic.
A talented songwriter, Chloe is working on her own album of music, due out next year, which will include a song she wrote called Phoenix. ‘My mum listened to it every day and said it helped her feel strong,’ says Chloe.
But Chloe doesn’t see herself performing in front of huge audiences, like Olivia used to.
‘ My mum was comfortable performing in front of millions of people, but I’ve finally had to admit to myself that I like to do things more privately,’ Chloe says cautiously.
‘I’m built differently and can’t handle as many eyes on me as she could. I can’t perform live in front of millions of people, but I can use my talent behind the scenes.’
That awareness, she says, means her mental health struggles have turned out to be a blessing.
‘I’m grateful for my experiences, just as my mother said she was grateful for her journey with cancer because it made her life all about helping others.
‘My mother taught me about gratitude and living a life of service to other people — and I’m looking forward to continuing to carry the torch.
‘And whenever I’m feeling low, I picture my mum’s arms around me, and I feel better. I know that she’s beside me, always.’
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