Jane McDonald Reflects on Marriage and the Music Industry: “They Wanted to Change Who I Was”
Singer and television personality Jane McDonald has opened up about her past, revealing candid details about her first marriage to manager Henrik Brixen and her experiences navigating the often-cutthroat music industry. In a recent interview, the 62-year-old star confessed that she “never loved” Brixen, to whom she was married for eight years. McDonald went further, claiming that Brixen, along with elements of the industry, sought to alter her identity and distance her from her working-class roots in Wakefield.
McDonald, whose self-titled debut album achieved chart success in 1998, explained that the pressure to conform was immense. “They cut my hair. I hated it,” she recalled. “I was laughed at and shunned and underdogged. But I was proud of where I came from. The public liked me because I was real.”
Born to a coal miner father and a shop-worker mother, McDonald embraced her humble beginnings. “We were really working class,” she stated. Despite her initial success, her career faced a downturn in the early 2000s. “Henrik had left,” she explained. “I got dropped from the BBC. My record company dropped me. And I just thought, carry on, but do it yourself. How hard can it be?”
These revelations follow earlier admissions from McDonald that she was never in love with Brixen, even describing his decision to end their marriage as “the best thing he ever did.” The singer was married to the Danish ship plumbing engineer for eight years, during which time he also served as her manager. However, she admitted to being the only one unaware of her lack of romantic feelings for her ex-husband.
McDonald also touched upon Brixen’s reluctance to fully engage with the often-unconventional practices of the music business. Following her separation from Brixen in 2003, McDonald reconnected with her teenage sweetheart, Eddie Rothe. Tragically, Rothe passed away from lung cancer in 2021.
A Las Vegas Whirlwind and a Marriage on the Brink
Reflecting on her 2001 shows in Las Vegas, McDonald shared a poignant moment that underscored the strain in her marriage. Speaking on the Table Manners podcast, she recounted, “It’s really strange this, because I should have had the best time of my life. I just got to Vegas, but I knew my marriage was on the brink.”
While describing Brixen as a “nice guy,” McDonald was candid about her lack of romantic love for him. “Oh no, I really wasn’t,” she admitted. “Everybody could see it and was going, that’s not gonna last. I was the only one who didn’t see it. But he was a great guy, and he did his best, you know.”
When questioned about Brixen’s effectiveness as a manager, McDonald acknowledged his strengths in certain areas but highlighted his fundamental misunderstanding of the industry. “He was, he was in certain things. He was brilliant, but he was very Danish and didn’t understand that it’s all a game, our business, and you have to play it.”
She elaborated on her early career as a “club artist” and “cruise ship singer,” genres that were not readily accepted by the mainstream industry at the time. “And nobody thought for one minute that I would go straight to number one with that album, nobody. Not even the record company,” she stated. “It was a shock to everybody. And then my tour sold out massively, which was, you know, another learning curve.”
Taking Control and Building a Fanbase
McDonald described the challenging period of learning the music business alongside Brixen. “And I was learning the business with Henrik (her husband and manager at the time) along the way. So it was like, hang on a minute. This is not tallying up […] but it’s a game, and you have to play it.”
Following her dismissal from record labels, McDonald decided to take matters into her own hands. “And then I got dropped from my labels, and I thought, how hard can this be? So I did it all myself,” she said. She emphasised that artists don’t necessarily need a record company, but rather financial backing.
- Funding Her Career:
- McDonald frequently put her house up as collateral to fund her tours and albums.
- She explained that having no children made this risk more feasible.
- Her mother was always supportive and willing to live wherever she was based.
“My fans are the best in the world. And they stood with me,” McDonald expressed with gratitude. “So it’s only been the last sort of five years that I’ve finally been able to breathe now, but I never gave up. And I think that’s the thing.” She offered advice to aspiring artists, suggesting that perseverance is key and that one must either play the industry’s game or find an alternative path.
Loneliness and the Pain of Loss
McDonald’s 2019 autobiography revealed a growing sense of loneliness in her marriage, particularly after Brixen dismissed the idea of having children. “Henrik and I once talked about having children but there wasn’t room for babies in his plans for me,” she wrote. “I began to feel lonely in my marriage.”
She described the dynamic with her manager-husband as all-encompassing: “Your manager is your boss and tells you what to do, what to wear and who to be, so our relationship changed. I loved him with all my heart but felt he’d stopped looking at me as a wife. I became a product.” This led to the difficult decision to “fire” him as her manager.
In more recent times, McDonald has spoken about the enduring pain of losing her partner, Eddie Rothe. Four years after his death, she shared that “not a day goes by where she doesn’t think of him.” The singer and TV presenter, who lost Rothe to lung cancer in 2021, continues to miss him profoundly.
“Of course I do,” she responded when asked if she misses having someone to share her life with. “There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think of (Eddie), talk of him – It’s awful.”
McDonald offered a raw perspective on grief: “I’m not going to butter this up in any way: grief stays with you all the time, but what you have to do is sit it beside joy. You have to bring as much joy into your life as humanly possible, so that you feel more joy than the grief. I’m just about level now.”
She revealed that she begins each day with a mantra, consciously choosing to focus on positivity. McDonald and Eddie Rothe, a star of The Searchers, had known each other since their teenage years. Their romance rekindled in the early 2000s, and they became engaged in 2008.
Living The Dream is available now. Jane McDonald is set to embark on a UK tour starting August 28.
