Natalie Imbruglia and Daniel Johns talk about their marriage and break-up for the first time in new podcast episode

More than a decade after their split, Natalie Imbruglia and Daniel Johns have opened up about what ended their marriage.

Australian singer Natalie Imbruglia has revealed she tried to repair the cracks in her long-distance marriage with Daniel Johns, declaring he was the “love of my life”.

But the tyranny of distance as they were both on tour, and he battled physical and mental health issues, ultimately ended the five-year marriage in 2008.

Johns told The Project recently the pair had finally reconnected after a decade of silence and the two artists shared their perspectives on the break-up for the first time in the latest episode of the Who Is Daniel Johns? podcast.

Natalie Imbruglia with husband Daniel Johns in Sydney in 2006. Picture: NCA

“Oh, it was really, really hard, it’s a difficult time to talk about and to be honest, I just remember trying … just trying to get things back on track … and sometimes there isn’t a way through it and that’s where we found ourselves, I’m afraid,” she said.

“He was the love of my life and I think in time you realise that’s a really special thing and you look back on it fondly.

“And it doesn’t come around that often that you can both feel that way about each other … it’s not something that is necessarily repeatable in that way … it’s a beautiful thing.”

Johns, who has referred to their union as “the best marriage ever” said the split, when he was 28 and she was 32, was “probably the best thing that could have happened” because they wanted vastly different lives.

Imbruglia and Johns announced their split in early 2008. Picture: NCA

“Because she wanted to settle down and have babies and she wanted to do normal stuff and I just wanted to get weirder, so we just kind of disappeared from each other,” he told interviewer Kaitlin Sawrey.

“She taught me how to be a man, you know … I met her when I was 19, at risk of sounding sentimental.”

While they may be on friendly terms now, his relationship with former Silverchair bandmates Chris Joannou and Ben Gillies, who declined to take part in the podcast, is more “like a divorce”.

He speculates his childhood friends felt “abandoned” when he aborted sessions to record a sixth Silverchair record in 2011 and the band issued a public statement they were on an “indefinite hiatus” despite Johns wanting it to be a definitive break-up.

The Who Is Daniel Johns? podcast is No. 1 on Spotify.

The musician shakes and his voice cracks with nerves as he discusses the state of his relationship with Joannou and Gillies after being asked if he is “still friends with Ben and Chris.”

“Yeah, we are still friends … it’s like a divorce and we were friends since we like seven years old,” he said.

“I think they feel when I wanted to leave the band I abandoned them … I didn’t abandon them, I just got over (the band).

“We have never really healed but I don’t dislike them and they don’t dislike me … I don’t think.

“It’s really awkward … it’s really hard to mend that bridge.”

Silverchair are yet to heal their post-split rift a decade after announcing their “indefinite hiatus”. Picture: NCA

The episode charts the troubled genesis of the band’s final album Young Modern and its subsequent tour, and his clashes with producer Nick Launay who wanted to “simplify” the singer’s grandiose musical vision to make it palatable for pop fans.

It delves into Johns’ mental health crisis as he battled with the rare inflammatory condition, reactive arthritis, when he said he felt like he was treated like a “cash cow” and not supported by those around him.

“I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus but for lack of a better term, I was the cash cow and as soon as I got sick and U was desperate for support, everyone just got angry with me,” he said.

“And I was really f — ing sad … all these people I thought are my best friends and my counsel and my everything just got angry at me because I was sick and I couldn’t pay their bills.

“I don’t want to go much further into it because it makes me feel really sad.”

Who Is Daniel Johns? is on Spotify now.

Originally published as Natalie Imbruglia and Daniel Johns talk about their marriage and break-up for the first time in new podcast episode