Vanessa Amorosi was on every radio station. Behind the scenes, her family was falling apart.

Singer-songwriter Vanessa Amorosi is finally speaking out about her lengthy legal case against her mother, Joyleen Robinson.

The 'Absolutely Everybody' singer was locked in a messy dispute over two properties that listed both women as owners — one in Melbourne's south-eastern suburb Narre Warren, and a second in California, United States.

Amorosi argued $650,000 of the money she earned from her work as a singer, songwriter and performer was taken out of a trust account to buy a home for her family back in 2001.

She says everything unravelled when she bought her dream home in California after moving to the US in 2011, and her mother told her she couldn't afford to keep the house.

Now, the Australian singer is addressing the bitter legal feud head-on, answering the one question everyone has been asking.

"People want to know about it. Why would you do this to your family? Why would you do this to your mum?" she told 60 Minutes on Sunday.

"Trust me, I don't want to do that."

Watch this clip of Vanessa Amorosi at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Post continues after video.

Amorosi's journey began at 15, when she was discovered singing in a Russian restaurant in Melbourne. There was no social media back then to push artists into the spotlight, so the singer, then still just a teenager in high school, would perform at shopping centres.

She shot to stardom after releasing her first album, 'The Power'. In 2000 alone, she earned six ARIA nominations.

Over the years, several trusts were set up to manage Amorosi's earnings. The pop star says her mother and stepfather managed one of the trusts.

In 2001, a portion of the money Amorosi made that year was used to purchase a property in Melbourne's southeast.

Amorosi said her mother bought the Narre Warren property in 2001 before she had even seen it for herself.

"When I first saw the house, I was a little disappointed. I didn't want a massive house like that," Amorosi told the court, according to The Project.

Vanessa Amorosi circa 2000. Image: Getty.

In 2005, the singer bought another home in the Melbourne suburb of Officer, using another trust created by her mother.

She told the court she had to take out a loan for the property even though she had been earning millions of dollars.

The singer eventually moved to California for career opportunities, and it was here she bought her first US property, using the Narre Warren and Officer properties, as well as two residential units, to take out a loan.

She told the court that she was going to sell the Officer property and the units to put a mortgage down on the home, but it didn't happen. She then had to sell that California property in 2014.

The singer shared that she became suspicious of her mother at this point and hired forensic accountants to look into the handling of her wealth.

"Around the end of 2014, when I knew I was going to be losing the property, there was a lot of turmoil going on," Amorosi told the court, adding that she had also been dealing with the death of her biological dad, Frank Amorosi, who had been estranged from his family since the singer was young.

This decision led to the breakdown of Amorosi's relationship with her family.

The singer went on to say that when she returned to Australia in 2015 while pregnant, she was refused entry into her own house.

"I kept questioning my mother, so it made everybody pretty angry, and that was it. It was very clear to me that I was not welcome to come home," she said.

The singer says questioning her family over money created a major rift.

Speaking to 60 Minutes, Amorosi said questioning her mother about her own money was seen as a total betrayal and ultimately created "a s**tstorm among the family behind closed doors".

And so the bitter court battle began.

Amorosi sued her mother to gain control of the two properties she claimed were rightfully hers.

In late 2023, lawyers for Joyleen conceded that, as Amorosi was the sole benefactor of the trust, a different California property which she currently resides in, could be given to her, ABC reports.

This left only the Narre Warren home at the centre of the fight.

The eight-hectare parcel of land had the mother-daughter pair listed as joint owners, but the singer sought either full ownership or to hold at least 50 per cent of the home.

Joyleen, who lived in the Narre Warren property, countersued, saying the property was rightfully hers.

Joyleen claimed that in 2001, she made an agreement with her daughter to have full ownership of the home in exchange for a future payment of $650,000.

Last year, the Supreme Court of Victoria ruled in favour of Amorosi. She was, however, ordered to pay her mother $650,000 plus $219,486.33 in interest, in the form of "restitution" — a total of nearly $870,000, according to ABC.

Amorosi said she felt she had no choice but to fight for ownership of the house or face serious debt. She told 60 Minutes she doubts her mother expected her to put up such a fight.

"I think she banked on, (that) I would never have the guts or the courage to have this go public, and so I would just walk away. I honestly believe that," she said.

Instead, Amorosi pushed on with the fight as it played out publicly.

Vanessa Amorosi at the Australian Women In Music Awards 2023. Image: Getty.

The family had been a tight-knit unit in the years after Amorosi's father Frank, moved out. In fact, his allegedly violent behaviour had been the reason Amorosi's mother claimed the singer gifted her the property.

"When I was married to my first husband, I was an abused wife. [Amorosi] always said she would make me a lovely house and look after me," Joyleen alleged to the court.

"I wouldn't take that much money off my daughter, so we had the agreement that I thought she understood that when she needed the money I would sell [the house] that I had to have three jobs to pay for."

Amorosi opened up to 60 Minutes about the alleged abuse she says she endured at the hands of her father, saying it created a culture of distrust of people outside her family.

"It's a terrible Pandora's box," she said.

"I think because of my experience growing up in a household like that, I really felt like I wanted to protect my mum.

"I don't like talking about it… he's passed away. [But] Maybe that helps people have a little bit of insight to the bond that was made between my family."

Now, Amorosi is preparing for a comeback tour in Australia to mark 25 years as a singer.

She wants to protect other young artists from such legal issues and has been campaigning for legislative change that would require 15 per cent of performers' earnings to be kept in an untouchable trust until they turn 18 or 25.

"Money changes people," she said.

Feature Image: Getty.