JIMMY BARNES’ 40-YEAR LOVE STORY
Theirs is a rock’n’roll romance for the ages
When Jimmy Barnes spied dark-haired stunner Jane Mahoney at an event in Canberra in November 1979, he knew she was The One. All that stood between them was the fact that she wasn’t quite as interested – and that he was dating not one, but two other women at the time!
Despite the Cold Chisel frontman’s somewhat awkward prior commitments and the fact Jane put him in a taxi and ended their first night separately, he must have made an impression because she agreed to spend the following day with him – and married
him two years later. In his biography Working Class Man, Jimmy wrote, “I’d met a lot of girls in my life but no one had ever stopped me in my tracks like that girl did. She was way out of my class but I loved her from the minute I saw her. Jane would change my life.”
THE FAMILY WAY
Jimmy, 64, and Jane, 63, had three daughters and a son together – with their kids forming child band
The Tin Lids – and rapidly became the first family of the Aussie music industry.
“They love each other and adore their kids, but it was by no means a modern rock-star fairytale,” says a source.
Indeed, both Jimmy and Jane found themselves seeking treatment for booze addiction at separate times in 2003 – and Jane rues that their kids blamed her.
“They thought I was the bad influence who had driven him off the edge. That was really shocking to me,” she once explained. “I did feel there was an injustice. It wasn’t all me.”
It wasn’t the only time kids created friction in the marriage, especially when it was revealed that Jimmy had fathered two daughters before meeting Jane.
‘WILD YEARS’
In 2010, two Adelaide women, Megan Torzyn and Amanda Bennett – who was born the same year as his eldest son David Campbell, 47, whose mum is Kim Campbell – claimed they were his daughters, with the singer taking a DNA test to confirm he was their dad.
While Jimmy’s kids, also including Mahalia, 38, EJ, 36, Jackie, 35, and Elly-may, 31, “took the news in their stride and were very welcoming”, our source says it took Jane a little longer to accept the situation.
“Jane knew he had some wild years hidden in the closet, but this was a lot to take in,” says a source. “She has since accepted them, but it was a long road.”
Things took a dark turn for Jimmy in 2012, when he awoke in a boozed-up haze after trying to take his own life the night before. While he says he has no memory of the attempt, he had been troubled by suicidal thoughts for years – and said confessing his feelings to Jane had helped him turn his pain around.
Next month, Jimmy and Jane will celebrate their 40th anniversary – and his new lease on life.
Winning over a new generation of fans by posting Instagram videos of their adorable duets during lockdown, along with sharing snippets of their home lives with their beloved grandchildren, it’s clear they’ve found peace after his years of hellraising.
Their four decades of marriage is being honoured with a photograph of the pair lying in a bed of roses collected from their garden in the National Portrait Gallery’s Australian Love Stories exhibition. “Jimmy and Jane are in the happiest place of their lives,” says a source. “It was something they never thought would be possible for either of them, but it’s true that their love conquers all that’s been thrown at them. They’re honoured to be included in this exhibit together. It’s the perfect way to mark their milestone.”
‘Their love conquers all that’s been thrown at them’
When cancer left Samantha Bryant infertile, her sisters Nikkita Brand and Rachel Male volunteered to make her motherhood dreams come true.
Now proud mum to fouryear-old Starla, Samantha is forever grateful to Nikkita, 27, who donated her eggs, and Rachel, 39, who acted as surrogate, after stage-three ovarian cancer left her unable to conceive.
“It’s a gift I’ll never be able to repay,” Samantha tells Woman’s Day. “I have no
words to describe what they’ve done for me… the only thing I can do is be a good sister to them and a good mum to Starla.”
Samantha, 44, was working as a midwife in Melbourne’s Frankston Hospital when she began experiencing intense pain in her pelvis in July 2003. An ultrasound revealed a mass in her abdomen.
Rushed into surgery to remove it, Samantha’s world shattered when she learned that her body was “full of cancer”.
“I went into shock,” recalls Samantha, who was 27 at the time. “I remember thinking, ‘Maybe they have this wrong…i’m fit and I have no family history, this can’t be happening.’”
GRUELLING TREATMENT
Given just months to live, Samantha started five months of intense chemotherapy. Battling hair loss, nausea and severe cramping, she then pushed through 35 days of radiation treatment before going under the knife to remove any residual cancer cells.
And while the treatment saved her life, the damage to her ovaries ruined her chances of conceiving naturally. “I was so scared. I’d always wanted to be a mum,” says Samantha.
Declared cancer-free in May 2004, Samantha and husband Ben, 45, waited five years before beginning IVF treatment. Taking high doses of oestrogen and progesterone to prepare her uterus lining for the embryo implantation, she was terrified the cancer could return.
“I was taking a huge risk,” says Samantha. “But I wanted a baby so badly.”
After seven rounds of unsuccessful IVF cycles, the couple travelled to Spain in 2014 to try donor embryo implantation, but their attempts were unsuccessful.
“It was gut-wrenching,” says Samantha. “We were shattered and disappointed every time it didn’t work.”
But Ben kept his wife strong. “He’d always tell me, ‘I love you no matter what’. His reassurance was everything.”
Running out of options, Samantha was ready to give up her dream of motherhood, but her sisters weren’t. Heartbroken for their sister, Rachel and Nikkita offered to act as surrogate and egg donor for the couple.
“I thought why waste my eggs on a period when my sister wanted a child so badly,” says Nikkita. “It just made sense.”
‘It’s huge that [my sisters] would do that for me’
“When surrogacy was raised as something that could be done, I was happy to do it,” adds Rachel. “But convincing Sam was a bit difficult.”
Worried about the emotional and physical toll it would take on her sisters, Samantha eventually agreed. After rigorous counselling and mental health checks, the sisters were approved by the government surrogacy board.
“I felt like it was too good to be true,” says Samantha, who was overjoyed when Rachel fell pregnant in January 2016. “It’s huge they would do that for me.”
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
Born into Samantha’s arms, it was love at first sight when baby Starla arrived on September 16, 2016 at Frankston Hospital. Weighing 2.7kg, the perfect baby was welcomed into the world by Nikkita, Ben, and Rachel. “I loved her straight away,” says Samantha. “I bawled my eyes out. I hugged my sisters and my husband.
It was so emotional.”
Given her own health battles, Samantha took steps to harvest Starla’s umbilical cord blood, containing lifesaving stem cells, thanks to Cell Care.
“Given my medical history it was a no-brainer [deciding to arrange] to have my daughter’s stem cells harvested,” says Samantha. “I hope I never have to use them but it’s an insurance policy.”
While the journey was tough, Rachel and Nikkita say they’d do it all again to see the joy Starla has given Samantha and Ben. “It was hard but it was so worth it,” says Rachel. “It was one of the best experiences of my life.”
“To be able to finally give her what she’d been trying so long to get… it was amazing,” adds Nikkita. “This experience has really bonded us.”