Matthew Hild’s “A Little More Love” delves into McDermott’s mysterious disappearance during a 2005 fishing trip, and its profound impact on the “Physical” singer.

New Olivia Newton-John book revisits the disappearance of her cameraman boyfriend Patrick McDermott

Matthew Hild's "A Little More Love" delves into McDermott's mysterious disappearance during a 2005 fishing trip, and its profound impact on the "Physical" singer.

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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May 14, 2026 9:00 a.m. ET

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Olivia Newton-John with Patrick McDermott at the Human Rights Campaign Gala in Los Angeles in 2001. Credit:

- Matthew Hild's new biography of Olivia Newton-John, *A Little More Love*, delves into the mysterious 2005 disappearance of her boyfriend, Patrick McDermott.

- The "Physical" singer and the cameraman met in the mid-1990s and dated on and off through the mid-2000s.

- McDermott disappeared without a trace during a 2005 fishing trip, with the Coast Guard eventually concluding that he "most likely" drowned.

The tragic disappearance of Olivia Newton-John's boyfriend Patrick McDermott gets a fresh look in a new biography of the pop culture icon.

Newton-John met McDermott, a cameraman and cinematographer, in the mid-1990s, when she starred in a commercial he worked on as a gaffer. Though the "Physical" singer often hedged around identifying McDermott in the ensuing decade as her boyfriend, she revealed they had a years-long on-again, off-again relationship in her 2019 memoir, *Don't Stop Believin'*.

Nearly four years after her death at the age of 73, Matthew Hild's new biography, *A Little More Love: The Life and Legacy of Olivia Newton-John* (out May 14 via Bloomsbury), delves into their relationship, and the tragic way it was severed by McDermott's 2005 disappearance.

Patrick McDermott with Olivia Newton-John.

Newton-John and McDermott bonded over their love of the outdoors and similar experiences going through divorce. McDermott was father to a young child when they met, and even became a creative collaborator after they embarked on a relationship, when he shot a photo for Newton-John's 1998 album *Back With a Heart*.

"We've managed to keep it quiet for two years," Newton-John told *Woman's Day *Australia that same year, per *A Little More Love*. "Because so little of my life is private, I intend to try to keep this as private as I can. My relationship with Patrick is great. It's a lovely thing."

They cycled in and out of romantic involvement for the next handful of years. In the lead-up to the release of Newton-John's 2005 album *Stronger Than Before*, she traveled to her native Australia "when Patrick McDermott’s name started making headlines around much of the world, for just about the worst reason that she or anyone else who loved him could have possibly imagined," Hild writes.

McDermott was reported missing early that July. He had boarded the fishing vessel *Freedom *on June 30 in San Pedro, Calif., for an overnight trip, but family and friends' alarm bells rang out when he failed to show at a planned event on July 6. His car was discovered at the 22nd Street Marina with his personal bag still inside. Investigators immediately began fielding conflicting reports — that he was spotted in Mexico, that he fell overboard and drowned, that he had surreptitiously returned to San Pedro, faking his death to evade debt.

The first reports of his disappearance arrived that August.

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According to Hild, Newton-John contacted the security specialist Gavin de Becker to aid the search for McDermott. "He sent a couple of his private investigators to Mexico, armed with a list of places there that Olivia remembered Patrick having talked about. They came up empty. Olivia asked de Becker if she should make a television appearance and plea for anyone who might have any information about Patrick’s whereabouts to come forward, but de Becker advised against it."

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Still, she issued a public statement that August, which read (per Hild), "I am hopeful that my treasured friend is safe and well and I am grateful to the officials who are working so hard to find Patrick, whom I love very much. I ask anybody with information that could help to please, please come forward."

But no one did, at least no one did with any information that led to McDermott's whereabouts. That November, "an investigation by the US Coast Guard concluded that Patrick McDermott had 'most likely' drowned."

Olivia Newton-John in Los Angeles in 2002.

Frazer Harrison/Getty

A report of a more comprehensive Coast Guard investigation released in 2008, declaring that "McDermott was lost at sea."

But Newton-John wasn't so certain. Four years after his disappearance, Hild notes that Newton-John told an interviewer, "I think there will always be a question mark... I don’t think I will ever really be at peace with it."

Rumors continued to circulate about McDermott's potential whereabouts, but Newton-John rarely spoke about her former partner. In 2016, she gave a rare comment to *60 Minutes *Australia, noting, "It was very hard, he was lost at sea, and nobody really knows what happened... It's human to wonder [what happened]. But you know, those are the things in life you have to accept and let go. Because whenever you go through difficult times, there’s always those concerns. But, I live on."

*A Little More Love: The Life and Legacy of Olivia Newton-John* will be available in bookstores and online on May 14.

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