Jason Donovan has spoken candidly about the months following the passing of his father, Terence Donovan, revealing how grief, family and the smallest parts of everyday life have quietly changed the way he looks at what matters most.
“I Haven’t Really Spoken About This”: Jason Donovan opens up about grief months after his father’s pa:ssing
For decades, Jason Donovan’s life has unfolded in public — from Neighbours and chart success to theatre, television and a career spanning Australia and the UK.
But there is one deeply personal chapter he has largely kept to himself.
“I haven’t really spoken about this,” Jason admitted as he opened up about losing his father, celebrated actor Terence Donovan, earlier this year.
Terence passed away peacefully in Melbourne in July at the age of 91, with his family beside him. In the months since, Jason has had time to reflect not only on the father he has lost, but on the life still unfolding around him.
A bond that went far beyond their shared profession
For Australian television audiences, Terence Donovan was a familiar face in his own right.
His long acting career included appearances in some of the country’s best-known productions, including Neighbours and Home and Away. Jason would later follow his father into the industry and become one of the most recognisable stars to emerge from Ramsay Street.
But away from their careers, their relationship was much simpler.
Jason has explained that his father raised him and that the pair remained extremely close throughout his life.
That history gives the months following Terence’s passing a particularly personal weight. This was not simply the loss of someone Jason admired professionally. It was the absence of the person who had been at the centre of his life since childhood.
The everyday detail that now feels different
Speaking on Mamamia’s No Filter podcast with Kate Langbroek, Jason reflected on how losing a parent can change the most ordinary parts of life.
One of the hardest adjustments, he suggested, is the simple knowledge that he can no longer pick up the phone and call his father.
There is no dramatic moment attached to it. Instead, it is an everyday habit that suddenly no longer exists.
Jason said grief still “comes in waves”, while explaining that he feels fortunate to have so many photographs and pieces of footage through which he can revisit their years together.
Those memories now carry a different significance.
They offer a way back to moments that once felt ordinary — family gatherings, conversations and years spent alongside a man whose presence had always been familiar.
Gratitude alongside sadness
Jason’s reflections were not focused solely on sadness.
Terence lived to 91, and Jason spoke with gratitude about the long and full life his father had been able to experience.
Before his passing, the family could see that Terence was becoming tired. Jason described his father as remaining positive even as the later stage of his life began to take its toll.
When Jason and his brother Paul announced the news in July, they said their father had died peacefully in Melbourne and that the family had been with him during his final days.
Their message remembered Terence as a larger-than-life presence whose absence would be deeply felt.
The quiet months brought something else to the surface
As the conversation moved beyond grief itself, Jason began reflecting on what the experience had changed within him.
The past year — and particularly the most recent months — had “made me question a few things”, he admitted.
For someone whose adult life has been marked by ambition, performance and constant movement, his thoughts have increasingly turned towards slowing down.
He spoke about wanting to relax more and make better use of the time he has.
It is a subtle shift, but perhaps an understandable one.
Losing someone who has been present for almost an entire lifetime can change the value attached to ordinary moments — the ones that once seemed guaranteed to return tomorrow.
Jason Donovan’s idea of success has changed
Perhaps the most revealing part of Jason’s reflection came when he considered what success now means to him.
After decades of hit records, television roles, theatre productions and international recognition, his answer had little to do with career milestones.
Instead, he pointed towards home.
Jason said the fact his children choose to return home and spend their free time with their parents has become one of the clearest measures of success in his life.
It is a strikingly simple conclusion from someone whose career has been lived under bright lights for much of his adult life.
And it also echoes something Jason has spoken about before.
His family has long remained important away from his professional life. His daughter Jemma Donovan followed the family tradition into acting and later joined Neighbours, while Jason has previously described his children as one of the achievements he values most.
A different perspective after a difficult goodbye
Jason’s latest words do not suggest that grief has reached some neat conclusion.
Instead, they reveal something quieter.
There are still memories to revisit, familiar routines that now feel different and moments when the absence of his father becomes more noticeable.
But alongside that sadness has come a clearer sense of what remains.
For Jason, the months following his father’s passing appear to have shifted the focus away from what can be achieved next — and towards the people who are still there when the spotlight is switched off.
Source: Now To Love, September 29, 2026; Mamamia’s No Filter podcast, as reported by Now To Love.