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Natalie Bassingthwaighte candidly admits the “unravelling” of her 12-year marriage came after the “strange” events of one particular night in her life.
Nat – who became a beloved star thanks to her portrayal of Izzy Hoyland in Neighbours before joining Australian electro-pop band Rogue Traders – married the band’s drummer Cameron McGlinchey in 2011, with the pair going on to have two children, Harper and Hendrix.
However, in 2021, when Nat was working on the Australian tour of the musical Jagged Little Pill – a show inspired by Alanis Morissette’s 1995 album – the star went through an experience she now says “blows her mind”.
“The unravelling to me was standing there singing Forgiven,” Nat, now 50, told an episode of Mamamia’s No Filter podcast published on March 30.
Nat played the lead character of Mary Jane Healy in the musical – a Connecticut housewife who struggles with repressed past trauma and an addiction to prescription drugs, but is obsessed with keeping up appearances as her marriage falls apart.
Nat threw herself wholeheartedly into the role, giving everything to the performance and ending most nights with tears streaming down her face.
And yet on the night that ended up changing the course of her life, she felt another emotion – what she describes as “euphoria”.
“I felt free. I felt seen. I felt exposed and I felt raw… it was such a contradiction of life,” she told Mamamia.
Nat described it as a feeling of “there’s no going back” but she still “didn’t even know what that meant”.
Later that night, Nat met up with Pip Loth, the stage manager on the set of Jagged Little Pill. Nat estimates the duo had only known each other three weeks, and yet the connection between them was impossible to ignore.
Nat said her proximity to Pip – who identifies as non-binary and goes by the pronoun “they” – left her feeling like she had “electricity” running through her body, even though they never touched.
In that moment, her marriage to Cam was, in essence, done.
“Even after that night, I couldn’t let my husband touch me,” Nat told Mamamia. “And he never touched me after that night ever again. We never kissed ever again. It was so bizarre for him and me and all of us.”
Looking back, Nat – whose book Love Like This: A Memoir is out now – recognises that the chain of events was “hurtful” for her husband.
“He was like ‘where’s my wife gone?’ And every time he said that it was like my body froze and even the word ‘wife’ – I didn’t like it. My body was like ‘don’t call me that’,” she said.
“I didn’t like the ownership. I didn’t like the size of him. He felt very big and scary and one night I think I told him that he was terrifying and he was like ‘Me? Terrifying? That’s crazy’, and I’m like that’s how I felt.”
At one point, Cam asked Nat if she was a “lesbian”. It was a question she struggled to answer.
The pair had therapy together, and Nat went through therapy on her own. But it didn’t change how she felt about her marriage. It was over.
And yet, somehow, the duo had to find a path forward for the sake of their family – find a way to love each other outside of the relationship they had as husband and wife.
Nat went on to forge a relationship with Pip, with the pair becoming engaged in October 2025.
“’I was never going to get married again. After Cam and I separated, I became increasingly disillusioned with the idea,” Nat wrote in her memoir.
“That kind of pain doesn’t just vanish because you’ve moved on or found another relationship. It’s the kind of grief you know will keep showing up at every big life milestone and in small, surprising ways.”
But the star said her attitude changed after Pip reminded her that it wasn’t even legal for them to marry until 2017.
“I felt silly that it hadn’t dawned on me how much of a privilege it was that I’d been able to get married. Not once, but twice,” Nat wrote.
Today, the star says she is “full of joy” in her relationship and her connection with her ex is now “pretty darn good considering all that’s happened and that’s a privilege”.
“We had a very successful marriage. It was very beautiful. We’ve done amazing things together, achieved a lot and have two incredible children. We admire and respect each other, and there’s love there. It’s just different,” Nat told Stellar’s Something To Talk About podcast in a November 2023 interview.
But the media scrutiny that has come with her journey hasn’t been easy to handle along the way.
After Nat came out in her 2023 interview, she told News.com.au that she “burst into tears”, feeling “an overwhelming sense of relief – but then came fear”.
“How is it going to be received? Are my kids going to be bullied at school, and how is my family going deal with it?” she said.
In December that same year she was forced to hit back over vicious comments she had received online after coming out.
“I don’t understand how people have time to go on people’s pages and comment so viciously and horrifically and intentionally make people feel awful,” she said.
“Hate just brings more hate. And I don’t have any hate in my life.”
That same year she paid tribute to her ex’s “strength, courage and resilience” in a heartfelt post.
“If I can continue to show our kids that life isn’t perfect, it will throw some things at you but, ultimately, if you stand in integrity and with love, respect and kindness for everyone around you – including yourself – then it will radiate,” she wrote.
Love Like This: A Memoir by Natalie Bassingthwaighte is out now.
