WHY HUGH FORGAVE HIS MUM
STARTING A FAMILY WITH HIS ‘SOULMATE’ HELPED THE STAR FORGIVE HIS MUM AFTER BEING ABANDONED AS A CHILD
On August 23, Hugh Jackman shared an intimate image to Instagram that showed the actor beaming while wrapping his arm around his mum, Grace McNeil. While the picture might have looked like one of the thousands of fun family snaps that were shared on social media that day, the pair’s megawatt grins showed just how far their relationship has come since the star’s “traumatic” childhood.
Jackman, 52, was just 8 years old when he came home from school to find his mother had left. McNeil had back to her native UK without saying a word. She left a devastated Jackman behind in Sydney with his dad Chris and four older siblings, Ralph, Ian, Sonya and Zoe (his sisters would later join their mum in England after his parents’ divorce was finalised). “As I went off to school, when I came back, there was no-one there in the house,” the Wolverine star told 60 Minutes. “The next day there was a telegram from England, mum was there. And then that was it. Dad used to pray every night that Mum would come back,” he explained.
After the split, Jackman saw his mum once a year when she made a short return trip back to Australia. But he always held out hope his parents would reconcile during one of McNeil’s fleeting visits. “For many years, I thought it wasn’t going to be forever, so I clung on to that,” the Golden Globe Award winner told the Australian Women’s Weekly magazine. “Up until about the age of 12 or 13, I thought mum and dad would get back together ... Realising it wasn’t going to happen was probably the toughest time to be honest,” he admitted.
Today, the mother and son have a much better relationship, with McNeil regularly visiting Jackman and his family at their home in New York City. “We have definitely made our peace, which is important,” he told British newspaper The Sun.
Reconciliation for the pair wouldn’t have been possible without the help and support of Jackman’s wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, 65. The star and his long-term love share two children, son Oscar, 21, and daughter Ava, 16, and Jackman believes starting his own family allowed him to understand – and ultimately forgive – his mum.
“I think having kids of your own just adds another level of empathy
“That was the toughest time”
JACKMAN
and understanding,” Jackman revealed. “And there comes a certain point in life when you have to stop blaming other people for how you feel or the misfortunes in your life.”
Jackman and Furness adopted their children after struggling with fertility issues for several years. It was this experience that gave the Hollywood A-lister his greatest insight into the difficulties his mum went through at the time.
“I’ve spoken about it at length with her since and I know she was struggling,” he said. “She was in hospital after I was born suffering from postnatal depression. There wasn’t a support network for her here,” he explained.
Furness has stood faithfully by Jackman’s side since the couple met on the set of Aussie TV series Correlli in 1995. At the time, Jackman was fresh out of drama school while she was a seasoned actress with roles in Neighbours, The Flying Doctors and Prisoner under her belt.
“Deb, she was the big star. I get picked up, and Deb is in the front seat,” Jackman recalled of their first meeting to WHO’s sister publication People magazine. “She took off her seatbelt and she turned around and put her hand out and took off her sunglasses … I remember thinking, ‘I like this girl.’”
While Jackman was smitten, he was just starting out in the entertainment industry and feared he’d come across as “unprofessional” if he made a move on his co-star. Complicating matters was the fact that Furness was 13 years his senior, but luckily the actress felt the same way. “She said, ‘I noticed you haven’t talked to me in like a week, what’s going on?’” the Les Misérables star recalled. “I said, ‘I’ve got a crush on you. I’ll get over it, I’m sorry,”’ She goes, ‘Oh? Because I’ve got a crush on you, too.’ I never in a million years thought she reciprocated,” he explained.
After a whirlwind four-month romance, Jackman proposed. Just seven months later, the couple tied the knot in what Furness still quips was “the best wedding I ever went to”. Success quickly followed with Jackman landing his breakthrough role as Wolverine in the X-Men franchise in 2000. Furness’ career took a back seat as the pair set about pursuing their dreams of starting a family.
However, the path to parenthood wasn’t as easy as the road to Hollywood success. “We did IVF and Deb had a couple of
miscarriages,” the dad-of-two disclosed to US TV host Katie Couric on her talk show Katie. “There’s a grieving that you have to go through.”
Four years after their wedding, the couple’s dreams came true. Their son Oscar arrived on May 15, 2000. Jackman and Furness were present at the birth after the pair had the opportunity to meet and become “close to” his biological mother. Jackman admits as soon as he first laid eyes on his son “all the heartache just melted away”.
“Many of you are parents, you guys know you can’t prepare for that moment. Nothing can prepare you,” the stage and screen star said. “You can’t even explain how incredible it is and that avalanche of emotion that comes and how it opens up your heart, how it frustrates you, how it angers you, how everything is just all of a sudden how alive you are as a parent,” he explained.
Despite Jackman’s success – and being awarded People’s Sexiest Man Alive title in 2008 – his devotion to the woman he fell in love with “at first sight” has never wavered. “A few times in my life I’ve known things like for sure … one of those was Deb,” he gushed to the crowd in Brisbane during his stage show The Man. The Music. The Show in 2018. “I knew very early on in our relationship we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. I could feel it.”
Furness agrees, admitting that after all their years together and everything the pair have been through, she feels lucky to have found The One.
“I feel blessed that I experienced that I feel like I met my soulmate, whatever that is,” Furness said on Anh’s Brush With Fame last September. “When you find a partner in crime that you share and you grow together – and life is tough, as we know it, it’s not all good – and when you have someone there that is so supportive … you can really stand buck naked. You have to,” the actress explained.
While riding out the coronavirus pandemic in the hard-hit US state of New York, which endured nearly a full year of lockdown, would be enough to test even the most rock-solid of relationships, Jackman says the experience has only brought the devoted pair closer.
“We were just saying the other day – we have never spent this much time together,” The Greatest Showman actor shared with Extra while in lockdown. “But having this time without either of us working, being with the family … we’ve had this opportunity to be together, and the results are in: closer,” he gushed.
While celebrating their 25th anniversary back in April, Jackman proved he is still as happy as a newlywed and only has eyes for the beautiful blonde who caught his attention all those years ago.
“In our 25 years – our love has only grown deeper,” he gushed in an Instagram tribute post to Furness. “We’ve only just begun,” he added.
“I feel like I met my soulmate” FURNESS