What are the odds that two of Australia’s biggest music stars attended the same primary school together?
A school photo of the late Olivia Newton-John alongside horses hit maker Daryl Braithwaite has emerged, unearthing the little-known fact the duo attended school together.
Braithwaite, 73, shared the black-and-white class photo taken at Christ Church Grammar School in Melbourne in 1961 – some 15 years before Newton-John shot to global superstardom on grease.
“This is a lovely shot to look back at when Olivia was at (school) with all her friends back in 1961. Olivia is 2nd from the right and 3rd row from the bottom,” Braithwaite wrote.
He added: “She also loved all animals and was a beautiful soul who left a legacy that will last forever.”
Braithwaite has previously opened up about how the duo were briefly “boyfriend and girlfriend” while attending school, before Newton-John moved to London in her teens.
“She was one of the prettiest girls in the class, (we were) 11 or 12 I think,” he told The Morning Show in 2017.
“I don’t know how, we must have sat next to each other and thought, ‘Oh yeah that’s good’ and we were talking and then we held hands and then it was over.”
He further opened up about the pair being school sweethearts in an interview with now to lovein 2020.
“Olivia won’t mind saying that we did start out as boyfriend and girlfriend back when we were around 12 or 13 at the most,” he said.
“We held hands and we were in the same class. But then it all disintegrated. I think she left and went to England. I never actually knew that she could sing at the time.”
At the time, Braithwaite said the old friends were still connecting all these years later.
“It is one of those friendships where there was a decade, or maybe more, where we didn’t speak to each other, mainly because we were too busy or whatever, but over the last year or so I have made more contact with her than ever before, and she is lovely, she really is,” he said.
Newton-John died at her ranch in California on Tuesday aged 73, after a decades-long battle with breast cancer.
She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992. It went into remission but reappeared in 2013 and then again in 2017. At one point she said she was partly in “denial” about the disease, because if she dwelled upon it too much it would mean she wouldn’t “enjoy life”.
Her family, including husband John Easterling and daughter Chloe Lattanzi, have accepted Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ offer of a state funeral to honor her legacy and celebrate her life.
.