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More than a month after her death, Olivia Newton-John’s family held a private memorial to say their goodbyes.
Newton-John’s rep told Us Weekly, “There was a small and very private family gathering in California last week to celebrate Olivia. The family prefers to keep the details of the event private at this time.”
Just a few weeks ago, Newton-John’s daughter Chloe Lattanzi opened up about grief.
Chloe shared a quote from Jamie Anderson, which read, “Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”
Chloe captioned her Instagram post with a simple heart emoji.
In August, Olivia’s husband John Easterling revealed that she “died peacefully” at her Southern California ranch, and that she was surrounded by family and friends. No cause was confirmed, but she reportedly succumbed to metastatic breast cancer.
After her death, her close friends and family opened up about her final days.
Her niece Totti Goldsmith got emotional during her interview on “A Current Affair,” revealing that Olivia was “really skinny and unwell” before she died, adding, “It’s not a shock. We’ve known how sick she’s been, especially in the last five days.”
Of her final conversation with Newton-John, Goldsmith said, “I couldn’t get to America in time and I wanted to say goodbye, so I asked [her husband John] if he could hold the phone up to her ear… But he got me on FaceTime, so I managed to see her.”
Totti added, “I told her all the things I needed to say. She was leaving us… but I feel like she got it.”
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Olivia Newton-John’s Final Days Revealed
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According to Totti, Olivia wasn’t afraid of dying, telling her, “Plonker, I’m not afraid. I’ve done more in my life that I could have ever imagined.”‘
Goldsmith noted that Newton-John “struggled with a lot of pain,” elaborating, “It wasn’t just the cancer that got her. It was other complications and being in a hospital with a very susceptible immune system.”
Jane Seymour reflected on one of her last visits with Olivia.
She told “Today” on Tuesday, “She got the day wrong. But she knew we traveled like two or three hours to get there. And she got out of bed, got dressed, and came out in a walker. I mean, she shouldn’t have gotten out of bed at all. And she just sat down with us for quite a while and asked about us: How are we? How were our lives? How could she help us? And then she just looked around and she said, ‘Isn’t it beautiful here?’ And I said, ‘Yes, it is.’ She said, ‘I sit out here and I just look at the world. How beautiful! Look at the sky, look at the hummingbirds, look at that dog, look at this life that we have, and look at us together after all these years.’”
Jane and Olivia had been friends for 40 years.
Seymour pointed out, “I knew she was really, really ill for a very long time, as a lot of people did, and I had the privilege of seeing her not that long ago and talking to her. She was just an amazing person.”
Newton-John was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992. She halted her career and fought it into remission, but it returned in 2013 and 2017.
Last year, “Extra’s” Renee Bargh spoke with Olivia about her health.
In our last interview with Olivia, she shared, “I don’t know that I am cancer-free, but I am stable and feeling well.”