‘I’ll stop you there’: Darren Hayes shuts down question on-air

Darren Hayes is on the publicity trail discussing his new tell-all book – but there’s one question he doesn’t want to answer.

Former Savage Garden frontman Darren Hayes quickly shut down a question about whether the music duo would ever reunite today, telling a radio host: “I’ll just stop you there: NO.”

Hayes appeared on Nova 100’s Jase & Lauren this morning to discuss his new memoir Unlovable, which details his difficult childhood living under an abusive father and reveals the dark side of his rapid rise to fame.

Hayes alleges in the book that his Savage Garden partner Daniel Jones was cold and distant during their time as a top-selling musical act, and privately announced that he wanted to leave the band at the height of their career, before their second album Affirmation had even been released.

Jones was eventually persuaded to stay for that album’s world tour, with the understanding they would then go their separate ways.

But when news of their split leaked in October 2001, Jones called a press conference in which he laid the blame for the break-up on Hayes, insisting he had been blindsided by the news.

23 years later, and Hayes still fields queries from well-meaning fans wanting to know when Savage Garden, who sold an incredible 23 million copies of their two albums worldwide, will be getting back together.

Darren Hayes: “I’ll just stop you there: NO.”

As he told Jase & Lauren today: Don’t hold your breath.

“He was incredibly unkind to me, and he didn’t tell the truth when the band broke up and I got blamed for it,” he said of his former bandmate.

Co-host Jason Hawkins tried to press Hayes on the issue, but was swiftly shut down.

“Do you think there’s any chance if he …”

“No, I’ll just stop you there. No,” said Hayes.

Hawkins asked if Jones “reaching out” might change the singer’s mind.

The Brissie music duo conquered America and sold 23 million albums in their relatively brief career. Picture: Lance Staedler.

“No, because he has reached out several times and offered to go on the record and kind of apologise. What he did to me was public. Look, no one wants to hear about that stuff. Fans want to just hear songs,” he said.

Hayes has been dealing with the misconception that his solo ambitions caused Savage Garden’s split for many years.

Daniel Jones (right) called this 2001 press conference to claim he was disappointed Hayes was ending the band without consulting him. Picture: AAP

In a 2022 interview with Kyle and Jackie O, he was quick to correct host Kyle Sandilands when he made a passing reference to him having “left” Savage Garden.

“Well hang on, let me clarify that – Daniel left Savage Garden,” he said.

“I loved it, I would have been in that band forever.”

Co-host Jackie O asked if Hayes and Jones had been “good and supportive” of each other while in Savage Garden.

“Uh, no. I was really supportive of him; he absolutely hated the experience of being famous. He decided before the release of that second album (1999’s Affirmation) that he didn’t want that life – which is totally his right.

“A week before Affirmation came out, we had the number one single around the world (I Knew I Loved You), and Daniel had a life crisis and decided he didn’t want to do it anymore. We had to convince him: ‘Could you just maybe tour the album, and let’s work this out later on?’”

After he and Jones went their separate ways, Hayes released five albums as a solo artist and last year appeared as a contestant on The Masked Singer following a decade-long break from the music industry.

Originally published as ‘I’ll stop you there’: Darren Hayes shuts down question on-air