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"We were on a break. But we had been on breaks before and we got back together. It had only been for a short time," she says. "We had a wonderful relationship. He was so special and bright and loving and thoughtful and incredibly reliable as a father and boyfriend."
McDermott's disappearance, which remains unsolved by police, is also a mystery in her heart. "I don't really know what happened. That's probably the hardest – to live in the unknowingness," she says.
Harder still is that there have been episodic reports that McDermott is living in the Mexican town of Cabo San Lucas. Several newspapers claimed to have found eyewitnesses who said they had seen someone resembling McDermott, stirring speculation that he'd faked his own death to start a new life.
The rumors, says Newton-John, brought up a range of emotions, including "hope that maybe ... I don't know. It just stirs it up again. It creates that 'What if' again."
Deep down, however, the singer is convinced that McDermott didn't fake his death, if only because he would never subject his now 14-year-old son to such anguish. "He just wouldn't do that," she says. "His son was everything to him."
That feeling is echoed by the boy’s mother, McDermott’s ex-wife Yvette Nipar, 41, who has become close friends with Newton-John during the ordeal. "I can't imagine him leaving our son ever," says Nipar, an actress who was divorced from McDermott in 1998.
Newton-John says she hasn't spoken out until now because she didn't want to risk interfering with the investigation into McDermott's disappearance. "Obviously, if I thought it would have made a difference I would have," she says. "But we were doing what the police wanted. Just because I am a public figure doesn't mean it's not a really private thing."
But the music inspired by McDermott, and the joy it has brought Newton-John, are cause for ending her silence. "This one is really from my heart and spirit," she says of the album. "It gave me a lot of pleasure and peace to do it. It was a wonderful experience."
Her good friend, producer and songwriter Amy Sky, who collaborated on Grace and Gratitude, adds: "Olivia just pushed herself to sing from a really honest, emotive place. She tried to just get to the heart of her voice. And that's what you hear. It just gives you goose bumps."
