Inside Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan’s secret romance while starring on Neighbours

Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan provided one of the biggest soap moments across the globe when their characters Scott and Charlene married in Neighbours - and they had a hidden romance in private as well

A telly couple who shaped the 80s are tonight reunited on Neighbours.

Yes, Charlene and Scott were a national obsession, their wedding watched by 20 million UK viewers.

But the stars who played them, Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, attracted just as much attention.

Here best-selling celebrity biographer Sean Smith looks back at their secret lives and the affair they kept hidden.

Their innocent on screen love was an international phenomenon. But, behind the scenes, Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan made a pact with the producers of Neighbours that they would keep their steamy real-life relationship secret.

They were warned in no uncertain terms that if their romance became public knowledge, it would ruin the show and their own popularity.

Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan had a hidden romance during the 80s

Image:

( Fremantle Media/REX/Shutterstock)

The view was that while the audience loved the fictional love affair between Charlene and Scott, they might not be able to handle Kylie and Jason arguing in the supermarket over which brand of breakfast cereal to buy.

The revelation that Kylie spent most of her time shacked up with Jason at his place might not have helped either.

She loved hanging out at Jason’s, not having to bother to wear make-up or smart clothes, just being able to relax in her favourite joggers.

Kylie had made the first move when she and Jason were both cast in Neighbours. They had already met six years earlier aged 12 on the set of a forgotten series called Skyways, set in and around an airport.

Jason and Kylie played a brother and sister stranded at the airport waiting for their pilot father.

Kylie described the young Jason as “really chubby with a bowl haircut”. Jason later remembered his co-star as being “pretty chirpy and friendly” which made her sound like a sparrow.

Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan return to Neighbours

Image:

( Channel 5)

Those first impressions were forgotten when they met again. This time Jason immediately noticed Kylie’s superb figure and her lustrous blue eyes. For his part, Jason was no longer a podgy kid.

He had transformed into a blond heart-throb with perfect shiny white teeth and a ghastly mullet.

Kylie enlisted the help of a mutual friend to see if the spark was mutual and was thrilled to discover it was.

At the time Kylie was very much in the shadow of her younger sister Dannii, who was one of the biggest young stars in Australia.

During her teenage years Kylie used to come in from school, sit down at the kitchen table and forge her famous sibling’s signature on the hundreds of fan letters and cards she received.

Jason came from a more showbusiness background than Kylie.

The famous 1987 wedding scene with Scott and Charlene (Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue)

Image:

( AFP)

Her father, Ron Minogue, was an accountant, but Jason’s dad was the well-known Australian actor Terry Donovan, who played the major role of builder Doug Willis in Neighbours.

Jason lived at the bottom of Terry’s garden in a one-room bungalow, a teenage grunge paradise where he could strum guitar, smoke a joint and dream of being Michael Hutchence.

The new boy and girl friend spent most of their time in the upmarket shed, becoming a pretty boring couple.

They worked too hard to have the energy to go clubbing every night.

Instead they would pop out to their local Italian or Japanese restaurant. On days off, they would browse the clothes shops before meeting up with friends to enjoy coffee and conversation.

As their acting cash began to pile up, Jason bought his first house in the Richmond district of Melbourne – not the most upmarket of the city’s areas, but it was home.

Kylie and Jason reprise their roles as Charlene and Scott

Image:

( Freemantle)

Kylie didn’t move in permanently but at weekends they were like any other ordinary suburban couple, other than the fact that romance remained a secret.

The camera, however, had picked up the attraction between them.

It “made” the show, according to its creator, Reg Watson. Kylie was actually originally hired for just a 13-week run but that was quickly extended when the producers clocked the chemistry.

Their first screen kiss was front-page news not just in Australia but also in the UK where Neighbours went on air for the first time in October 1986.

When a British journalist travelled to Australia to report on their phenomenal popularity, she asked Kylie if she had a boyfriend. She “confessed” that she hadn’t had a boyfriend for two years.

Their secret almost became public knowledge when they slipped away for a paradise Christmas holiday in the sun on the island of Bali.

Some photographs were taken of Kylie sunbathing topless but fortunately these did not feature in the newspapers at the time. She was already a No1 recording artist by the time they appeared 18 months later.

Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue on Neighbours in the 80s

Image:

( Impressions / Getty Images)

The pictures were published far too late to spoil the fairytale wedding of Scott and Lenny in July 1987. It was episode number 523. In the UK alone, nearly 20 million watched it when it was broadcast over here a year later.

One of Charlene’s earliest storylines involved Scott and his mate Mike, played by future Hollywood star Guy Pearce, getting together to form a band and make a demo. A record company boss thinks the boys are rubbish but loves Lenny’s singing.

For Kylie Minogue, Neighbours was a stepping stone on her path to fame and it was no coincidence that her first single Locomotion was number 1 in Australia the very same month as her TV wedding.

Just a year later she had filmed her last scenes for the soap as she prepared for the release of her first album, Kylie, that would at the time make her the youngest ever female to top the UK album charts.

Scott and Charlene reunited with Jane (Annie Jones)

Her relationship with Jason went from being one of the best kept secrets in showbusiness to one of the worst-kept. Amazingly, though, nobody seemed to print the obvious.

A record firm insider explained: “It was quite bizarre because everybody knew. They were always holding hands and kissing in the car.

“She was totally into it and I remember him saying she was really keen and everything. But he was saying ‘I’m a young man and I just want to enjoy myself.’ It was inevitable it wasn’t going to last.”

The decision to keep their relationship a secret was as much to protect Jason’s career as Kylie’s. He was the ultimate teen-girl-fantasy, available to go out on a date with any girl.

Kylie and Jason were not the first and certainly not the last stars to manipulate a situation to suit the image they want to convey at any given time.

That was certainly the case with their cheesy duet Especially for You which was number one in January 1989, when ironically their love affair had cooled.

When Kylie, as Lenny Mitchell, left Ramsay Street for the last time, she drove off to Queensland to start a new life. There was always the prospect that she would drive back.

It has taken 34 years.

Ironically, in real life Kylie recently returned to live in Melbourne. She is arguably the greatest Australian superstar of all time. Jason is still much in demand as a musical star, settled in London with his wife Angela and three children.

Together Jason and Kylie were the prince and princess of soap.

Now they return one last time to Neighbours as the king and queen of heart-warming nostalgia.

*Neighbours’ penultimate episode airs at 1.45pm and 6pm today before the hour-long Neighbours: The Finale at 9pm, Channel 5.

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