‘I don’t discuss it’: Personal question Jack Thompson refused to answer

Jack Thompson sat down for a candid interview about his life, career and declining health - but there was one question he wouldn’t answer.

Australian acting veteran Jack Thompson sat down with journalist Michael Usher for a candid interview on Seven’s Spotlight on Sunday night.

Thompson, 84, opened up about his life and career and gave a brutally honest account of his declining health while living with “end-stage renal failure.”

But there was one question in particular from Usher that Thompson immediately shut down.

Usher cryptically mentioned a period in Thompson’s life where he was “controversially in a relationship that was not of the norm, at all”.

That’s putting it mildly. Thompson met sisters Leona and Bunkie King, then 20 and 15 respectively, in 1969 when he was 29 years old. The trio soon entered into a 15-year polyamorous relationship that regularly made headlines as the actor’s star rose.

Michael Usher tried his luck with a personal question.

Thompson quickly shut down the line of questioning.

Bunkie left the relationship in 1985 and has remained estranged from Thompson and her sister ever since - while Leona has stayed with Thompson, their relationship now stretching well over half a century.

In 2015, Bunkie wrote a tell-all memoir about their time together, titled Somebody That I Used to Know - Love, Loss and Jack Thompson.

Usher asked Thompson to tell him about the controversial three-way relationship - the only time in the half-hour segment that the actor shut down a question.

“I won’t. I don’t discuss it. It’s like, ‘Will I talk to you about a failed marriage?’ No, I won’t. Don’t want to,” he said.

Thompson was in a three-way relationship with the King sisters.

Bunkie (right) left the relationship in 1985, while Leona (left) has stayed with Thompson to this day.

Despite initially shutting down the question, Thompson did offer that the unusual arrangement had “taught me about love. It taught me to be true to your heart and I have been, and I’m still there with one of those women, who loves me and I love her.”

He said Leona had been by his side during his latest challenge, dealing with a serious decline in his health.

“Well, I’m in end-stage renal failure, I’m on dialysis. It keeps me where I am, on this side of the ground, and I’m very grateful for it,” he said.

Thompson says he’s now facing ‘end game’ health-wise, but wants to keep working.

Thompson shared that Leona had asked doctors if there was an alternative treatment option to dialysis.

The doctor’s response was blunt: “Well Mrs Thompson, you can have a dialysed Jack or you can have a dead Jack.”

While Thompson acknowledged he is facing what he describes as the “end game” health-wise, he also revealed he has no intention of slowing down, having already made three films while on dialysis.

“I wouldn’t be on the planet without that friendly robot along the side of me there, acting as a kidney,” he said of his ongoing treatment.

Originally published as ‘I don’t discuss it’: Personal question Jack Thompson refused to answer