The Olympics always inspire national pride, and the Sydney Games in 2000 were no different. Grease star Olivia Newton-John was chosen to perform during the opening ceremonies as a tribute to her native Australia, and it could not have come at a better time for the actress and singer. The ’90s were a tough decade for Newton-John, including a divorce from her ex-husband Matt Lattanzi and her first cancer diagnosis. However, like a phoenix from the ashes, Newton-John took to the stage and stole the show.
Newton-John teamed up with fellow Australian John Farnham, who was coming off of a major hit with the song “You’re the Voice,” to perform a stirring rendition of “Dare to Dream” during the opening ceremonies. Newton-John belted out the song like the professional she was, all while wearing diamonds estimated at $1.6 million. Newton-John also participated in the torch lighting ceremony and referred to her participation in the Sydney Olympics as one of the most “exciting honors of my life.”
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Farnham confessed in an interview in 2015 that while their final performance was a rousing success, there were some bumps along the way in rehearsal; namely, the fact that he dropped Newton-John while practicing. “We did the Olympics together and during the rehearsal, I dropped her,” Farnham admitted on the Network Ten TV show The Project, citing distraction.
“I let her go and down she went and she had this long sparkly-arkly dress on and we were walking up the middle of the crowd of volunteers, who were helping just so the camera could get the shot, and two pretty girls were going ‘John, John come up’ … and I dropped her and I felt terrible,” Farnham revealed. However, it was water under the bridge for the two singers, who eventually went on to do the Two Strong Hearts tour together in 2015.
Newton-John was most recently in the news for supporting her anti-vaxxer daughter, Chloe Lattanzi, and revealing that she wouldn’t be getting the COVID-19 vaccine. During an interview with The Herald Sun in February, Newton-John was asked if she planned to get a coronavirus vaccine as an advocate for “natural” medicine. “Not at this point, no,” she said, reports The Daily Mail. Newton-John, who is battling stage 4 breast cancer, did not discuss the subject further, but her daughter did. “I’m not an anti-vaxxer, I’m anti putting mercury and pesticides in my body, which are in a lot of vaccines,” Lattanzi, who has no medical background, said.
“To me, real medicine is what comes from the earth. I think people trust vaccines because the doctor says it is safe, I used to,” Lattanzi went on to say. She claimed to have “done research” herself and believes vaccines are unsafe, despite all the medical research showing that most are. “If I had a chance to take herbs and plants as a baby rather than have toxins injected into me I would have done that,” Lattanzi said.
