Rocker’s secret love child revealed

Musical gene … Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst with his long-lost daughter, country music star Jay O’Shea. Picture: Jay O’Shea
Source: Supplied

After a frustrating 15-year search to solve the puzzle of her birth, O’Shea was finally reunited with her biological father in 2010, thanks to the investigations of her biological mother.

The incredible story of their bloodline connection starts with Hirst and his childhood girlfriend, two teenagers who had to face the life-altering circumstances of young pregnancy.

Hirst said his girlfriend was sent to Adelaide by her parents to have the baby on January 17, 1974 in the Memorial Hospital in North Adelaide.

The child was immediately removed from her — she wasn’t even allowed to know whether the baby was a boy or a girl — and all the documents relating to her birth were completed with fabricated names.

“When these two teenagers discovered that they were pregnant, this was some cause for consternation, if not secrecy and shame, back then. These days of course, it’s quite different,” Hirst said.

His girlfriend eventually returned to Sydney hoping to reconcile with the aspiring musician, who by now had co-founded the band Farm which would become Midnight Oil.

Hirst regretfully told her he had moved on and they went their separate ways.

Reunited … Hirst and O’Shea have now recorded together. Picture: Jay O’Shea.
Source: Supplied

“My girlfriend told me that because all the names had been changed and the secrecy was so great that neither of us should ever expect to ever find this child ever again. to forget about it and go on with our lives as if it never happened.,” Hirst said.

“So the whole thing was quite brutal and there were thousands of stories like this.”

Jay, who with husband Mark O’Shea, has established a musical life in Nashville as O’Shea and won a Golden Guitar for Best New Talent in 2012, said the process was devastating for her birth mother who wishes to keep her identity private.

“Now I have two beautiful little girls of my own I can only imagine how traumatic that would be and how deeply affected you would be for the rest of your life, having a child taken away from you at such young age,” she said.

The baby was named Kylie Smith and adopted by a loving family in Adelaide’s northern suburbs with two big brothers and adoring parents.

Her mum told her she was special because she was adopted and even dyed her own hair red to complement the child’s flaming locks and avoid raised eyebrows in the supermarket aisles.

The musical gene ran strong in her. O’Shea and Hirst erupt into howls of laughter when she recalls performing on the 1980s talent show Pot Luck with judge Bernard King.

“I came third behind a dancer and some dancing Pomeranians,” she said.

With her parents’ support, she pursued her musical dreams performing in covers bands in her teens before deciding to move to Sydney when she was 19.

Country stars … Mark and Jay O’Shea will release their new record in January. Picture: Supplied.
Source: Supplied

At the same time, the yearning to find her birth parents became too intense to ignore.

“By the time I was about 22, it had become a real issue for me, I felt that hole in my life,” O’Shea said.

“I needed to find these people for better or worse. I contacted the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registry and Family and Community Services in Adelaide and got sent my information.

“All my records were fabricated and I was hitting brick walls. It was taking months at a time to get a page of information back. It was a very frustrating time.”

She kept forging ahead with her career, getting work as a backing vocalist for INXS when Jon Stevens was fronting the band, eventually moving to London and then meeting her musician husband.

O’Shea reluctantly accepted she may never find her answers while Hirst often wondered if the child he had fathered as a teenager would one day show up in his life.

And then her biological mother began her search in 2010 and within four months, contact was made.

It started with a text from her parents in Adelaide telling them Family and Community Services had good news and she should call them immediately.

“I sat up in bed and started bawling my eyes out, I just lost it. Mark freaked out, thinking someone had died. He has seen me go through so many times when I felt that lost. He knew how big it was for me,” O’Shea said.

“I call mum and dad and mum tells me the guy from the agency had called and he asked her a few questions.

“She said ‘And I told him your name was Jay O’Shea and you had married a nice man called Mark and you were a country singer living in Nashville. But don’t worry I didn’t tell him anything.’ Bless my parents, they have been so beautiful about all of this and excited for me.”

On the road … Hirst hit the road after high school with his band Farm which became Midnight Oil. Picture: Supplied.
Source: Supplied

A 10-page email from her birth mother arrived and all the questions of O’Shea’s life were answered, including the name of her birth father: Rob Hirst.

This news was even more shocking for her because two of the O’Sheas’ best friends in Nashville are Midnight Oil’s bassist Bones Hillman and his wife Denise.

“It was a huge shock. Firstly we had become good friends Bones and his wife and had been in their house a dozen times and looking at some of the Midnight Oil posters that were up and staring at Rob. And not knowing he was my birth father.”

It would be Hillman who actually physically reunited the father and daughter on the phone when he happened to be at the O’Sheas for dinner and Hirst phoned him just as his daughter revealed the truth.

“Just as we were all crying and talking about it, the phone rang and it was Rob. Bones answers ‘Hi mate, I just found out. Here Jay, here’s your father.’”

Meanwhile, Hirst was telling his wife Leslie Holland and daughters Lex and Gabriella about the secret daughter from his past.

After the shock settled, the Hirst family supported him as he was reunited with O’Shea and his daughters got to know their new sister.

Hirst and O’Shea have both visited each other in Nashville and Sydney, their first meeting at Bronte beach about five weeks after they were put in contact.

Since then, a strong and loving bond has grown between the families and finally they have a musical collaboration, The Truth Walks Slowly.

A song originally written by Hirst and featured on his recent debut solo record The Sun Becomes The Sea resonated strongly with his daughter who asked his permission to rearrange it with her husband.

The new version is released today on iTunes and will appear on their next album The Famine and The Feast, out on January 16, ahead of their show at the Tamworth country music festival.

Both of them hope there will be a chance to perform it together when the O’Sheas return to Australia.

Proud dad … Hirst has now recorded with all three of his daughters in the past year. Picture: Joe Murphy.
Source: News Limited

“I wanted the first collaboration we did together to have some deeper meaning, maybe have some sort of family message about it, paralleling our reunion our way,” she said.

“I think it’s going to be pretty magical the first time we get to perform together on stage. One for the old photo album.

Hirst has now professionally sung with each of his daughters in the past 12 months, with Lex and Gabriella adding their vocal and artistic talents to his solo album.

“I just feel the luckiest man with these three brilliant daughters,” Hirst said.

https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/the-famine-and-the-feast/id909531766

www.news.com.au/entertainment/music