Dannii Minogue married Julian McMahon when she was 22.

When Dannii Minogue started dating Julian McMahon, actor and son of former Australian Prime Minister, Sir William McMahon, it was clear that the relationship was not going to be smooth sailing.

The Charmed actor, who passed away over the weekend at the age of 56, and Minogue made quite the '90s power couple, but all these years on, Minogue still has complicated feelings about their short-lived marriage.

She married McMahon when she was a 22-year-old pop star on the rise and he was about to hit the big time in Hollywood.

On an episode of the How To Fail podcast that streamed earlier this year, the singer shared some insights into their relationship.

"I don't think it's a failure, but at the time that it ended, my world was very dark and bleak and I just couldn't get over how wrong I'd got this – that I was a bad judge of character," she told host Elizabeth Day.

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"I was well aware most people saw that [the divorce] coming and I didn't… but love sweeps you off your feet and it's an incredible feeling. I really got swept away and did not see what it actually was — it should have just been something that was fun."

Minogue admits their love story started as a classic tale. "He was hunky and charming and always a big energy walking into a room and made me feel fantastic — until he didn't," she admitted.

So what went wrong? As many celebrity love stories go, distance did not make the heart grow fonder.

After they were married, Julian headed to New York to kickstart his acting career in the United States while Dannii needed to focus on her music career in London.

"He got on a soap opera there and I committed to travelling back and forth because we were married," she said.

"Each time I came back, there was just something not right: things I saw in the apartment, how I felt, there were people around that I didn't know, and he was just very, very distant until the point that he called it off."

While in New York, Dannii said she supported Julian financially, and Minogue claims that the couple's financial situation was becoming suspicious.

"We'd run through all my money. And I still don't know if that's sort of what made him just say, 'Alright, I'm out of here. I'm onto something else.' I honestly don't know. He has never explained to me," she said.

"He was financially on his feet, earning all of his money, keeping his money, and I was paying for everything."

Julian McMahon got his big break in Hollywood in the '90s. Image: Getty.

This meant that when her marriage collapsed, the singer had to rebuild herself and loan money from her family. "I was not only personally absolutely broken-hearted, but I was broke. I had no money in the bank. My family helped me out," she recalled.

What followed was a dark period in Dannii's life where she relied on her family for support. "They were taking phone calls from me and it was just bleak. I was crying all the time, just absolutely devastated," she said.

Decades on, Dannii has learned some lessons from her first divorce. "I can say now, I think we're two very different people. It wasn't right. I wish I had seen that. So I will take responsibility for my part of that. I really wish I had seen that," she said.

"We were both young, but we'd both lived big lives, so I think we thought we knew what we were doing. At least, I can say that for me."

For his part, in an interview with New Idea, McMahon stated that "there were never any hard feelings" between him and his ex-wife.

"I was well aware that we just weren't going to be able to make it work," he said in a 2013 issue.

"Maybe if we were a little more mature... Oh look, to be honest, I wouldn't have wanted to make it work."

But the couple had another problem to contend with during their relationship: Julian's mum.

From the very beginning, Dannii's mother-in-law, Lady Sonia McMahon, did not like her. Not one bit.

"His mother was very wary of me," she said, suggesting that Sonia was suspicious that Dannii was after the family's wealth and political power.

"Whatever it was that I was going to take from them, it was the furthest thing from the truth and not what I wanted at all," she recalled.

"She made it very clear that I was not to be around and she didn't want me a part of anything — yet Julian wanted me to be his wife.

It was a constant dilemma that ended up plaguing the couple’s relationship right up until their divorce.

Speaking to Anh Do on Anh’s Brush with Fame, the actress opened up about the frosty experience she had while dating her Home and Away co-star.

Dannii Minogue opens up about being compared to her sister Kylie on Ahn’s Brush with Fame. Post continues after video…

“His family were quite intimidating. His mum did not like me,” she said.

“I guess there’s a certain social pecking order, and I definitely was not in that scene,” she explained.

“She only spoke to me a couple of times, she wouldn’t let me go to the family house. Sometimes he had to go round and collect something, and I was waiting in the car out the front.

“It was as if I had done something wrong to the family – but I hadn’t done anything wrong.”

Danni Minogue and Julian McMahon in 1995. Image: Getty.

At 22 years old, in January 1994, Dannii and Julian married in Melbourne.

The couple's wedding photos appeared exclusively on the front cover of Woman's Day. But behind the scenes, their wedding day was filled with drama.

"On the actual day of the wedding, there was drama," the mother-of-one told Anh Do.

“She had said she wasn’t going to show up, so that’s quite stressful," she explained. "So then she did end up coming and was causing a scene, it wasn’t the greatest. It was hard. I tried to stay away from it because I just wanted to enjoy the day."

Dannii's interview on Anh's Brush with Fame wasn't the first time she's opened up about her relationship with Lady McMahon, who passed away in 2010.

Julian McMahon and his mother, Lady Sonia McMahon. Image: Getty.

"I was never accepted. It was never made clear to me why things were taken out on me. In my mind, I'd done nothing against her. But simply being with Julian was, in her mind, the wrong thing to do," she told Glamour magazine.

"It shaped me... it definitely wasn't easy for anyone - not for her, not for Julian, not for me. Nobody was having fun," she continued.

"Things really did come to a head. There was an unease that had been going on for a long time, but I caused some kind of explosion."

Dannii Minogue and Julian McMahon. Image: Getty.

Speaking to Anh, Dannii shared that following her marriage and the financial woes that came with it, she was offered to do a shoot with Playboy. The offer would get her out of debt.

"It was actually really liberating," she explained.

"They offered me this amazing situation to get out of this problem I got myself into and I don't regret it one bit. It was an amazing experience."

In 1999, Julian married Baywatch star Brooke Burns. They had one child together before they divorced in 2001. He married for the third time in 2014 to Kelly McMahon, who he remained with until his sudden death in 2025.

Dannii has a child with her former partner, English ex-professional rugby league player Kris Smith. The pair have a son together, Ethan Edward Minogue-Smith.

She has been dating producer Adrian Newman since 2014.

Feature image: Getty.