Life and times of John Singleton: Singo’s personal and business life unravelled
Following the stunning revelation John Singleton was selling off his multimillion-dollar horse racing empire, we look back at the larrikin businessman’s life.
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Larrikin. Businessman. Adman. Racing identity. Serial husband. John Singleton is known by many different monikers but his success in many different fields speaks to the type of man he is.
Singo, as he is colloquially known, has been married six times, has eight children to four different women, and made his fortune in his advertising business in the 1970s and 1980s before branching out to other fields — where he experienced even more successes.
At the age of 81, the multi-millionaire announced in July he was selling his horse racing empire and Central Coast home for $100 million — adding to his estimated wealth of $763 million.
On the back of this surprise news, we take a look back at Singleton’s personal and professional life which has spanned decades.
Background
He was born John Desmond Singleton on November 9, 1941 in Sydney. Although not too much has been publicised about his early childhood, he started work as a copy boy at an advertising firm when he was about 17 and then five years later, he became a creative director at that company.
He started his own agency by 1968 and from there, he started to really build his fortune, becoming the pioneer of “ocker” advertising, taking on big campaigns for Tooheys, Buttercup Bakeries and Udson with an Haitch, as well as then-PM Bob Hawke government’s re-election campaign.
He was also most known for owning radio station 2GB from 1996, but he sold his 32.2 per cent stake of Macquarie Radio Network to Nine Entertainment for $80 million in 2019.
His love of horses led to investing in racehorses over the years, which led to many wins. His most recent horse investment is three-year-old colt Hawaii Five Oh, co-owned by his long-time mate and breeder Gerry Harvey, and trained by Gai Waterhouse.
Marriages, divorces and relationships
Singleton has been married six times over the years and has had a long string of girlfriends throughout his life.
In December 2022, he split with girlfriend of 18 months Kim Dennis — who took care of him after he suffered heart failure and fluid on the lungs in 2021 — and now has a new flame although he has been reluctant to reveal her identity.
His personal life has been publicised heavily over the years due to the number of times he married and divorced:
* His first wife was Margaret Wall. The couple started dating in 1958 and then married in 1964. Their son Jack was born in 1971 but their marriage ended shortly after.
* Maggi Eckardt was his second wife. They started living together in 1972 and got married in November 1976 before their marriage broke down by early 1981.
* His third wife was Belinda Green. They began dating shortly after his split from Eckardt and their daughter Jessie was conceived in November 1981, and then got married in August 1982. They also had their second daughter Sally together in 1984 but their marriage ended by about 1988.
* Singleton married former 60 Minutes host Liz Hayes in February 1991 but their relationship was short-lived.
* Although they technically didn’t get married, Singleton and Jennifer Murrant considered each other to be husband and wife. She became pregnant 10 months after they started dating and had their son Joe in 1993 and then Hannah in 1995 before their relationship broke down.
* Julie Martin, who was 25 years his junior, was Singleton’s sixth wife. They started dating from March 1996 and married by November 1997. They had three daughters together — Dawn, Summer and Daisy. Their marriage was over by 2006.
Singleton is also a doting grandfather after a few of his children had children of their own.
He had an on-again, off-again relationship with Venessa Merrin between 2015 and at least 2021 where the then-couple escaped Sydney lockdown to reside at his home in Hawaii, before he started dating Dennis.
After reuniting in Australia with Singleton in November 2020, she attended the March 2021 wedding of 2GB radio presenter Ray Hadley to Sophie Baird.
Business and properties
The advertising guru turned media owner also turned to breeding and racing horses, as well as property development during his wide-ranging career.
He is founder of the John Singleton Group, described on its website as having “a reputation built on creating luxury developments, lasting partnerships and local enrichment”.
The company’s portfolio includes Saddles in Mount White, Saddles Nursery, Railway Hotel, The Elanora Hotel and Ravello Residences.
According to The Australian’s The List — showcasing Australia’s richest 250 people of 2023 — “Singleton’s best investment in the past year has been in coal, though he is best known for being one of the pioneers of the Australian advertising sector”.
“In a diverse career, he had the SPASM advertising agency and then John Singleton Advertising, before going on to own radio stations,” The Australian reports.
While Singleton announced he was selling more than 100 horses at his Strawberry Hill Stud including foals, mares, yearlings and racehorses as well as his Mount White home where they are based for more than $100 million, he will keep Saddles restaurant and Saddles Lodge.
This comes after he put his luxury seafront house at Lanikai Beach on the east coast of the Hawaiian island of Oahu in February 2022 up for sale, three years after paying $9.3 million for it.
Singleton has long been an advocate for the Central Coast.
In 2022, he rebranded his latest pub venture, Gosford’s Railway Bar and Steakhouse Hotel.
Initially called The Bon Pavilion and located in Singleton’s Gosford development Bonython Tower, the venue opened to much fanfare in 2019 with a $4 million fit-out and a steak and oysters menu.
But having failed to resonate with locals, the venue was transformed into a burgers and beer “pub” complete with second expensive redesign.
Past scandals
Singleton is no stranger to a public run in, famously feuding with old friends.
The first one was blasted over the front page of The Daily Telegraph in 2015 where Singleton was pictured holding a broken wine glass up at his billionaire mate Jack Cowin during lunch at Kingsley’s Steak and Crabhouse on Woolloomooloo’s Finger Wharf.
“I’m obviously having trouble growing up,” he exclusively told The Daily Telegraph’s Phil Rothfield at the time, passing off the incident as a joke among long-time friends.
He also had a blow-up with another old friend, horse trainer Gai Waterhouse, over his horse the More Joyous.
The pair was seen in a heated exchange at Royal Randwick in 2013 after the star mare ran second in the Group 1 All Aged Stakes.
The pair has since made up and moved on.
After the 2015 incident, biographer Gerald Stone, who wrote the book Singleton: Mates, Wives, Triumphs, Disasters back in 2002, said it was a return to Singleton’s wild days of the 1970s and 1980s.
“In his younger days he was a really volatile drunk,” his biographer Gerald Stone said in 2015.
‘‘You have to remember he grew up in a time when pub fights were pretty normal in Australia — people didn’t sue.”
An incident dates back to October 28, 1994 where Singleton was charged with headbutting an accountant at Sydney’s Forbes Hotel while celebrating his son’s 23rd birthday.
He was convicted in September 1995 and fined $1000 with $46 court costs.
Mr Singleton had told the court he had no memory of the incident but if it did happen, it was unintentional. He lodged an appeal later but dropped it.
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