‘He drugged me for years’: Farnham details early abuse by manager

John Farnham has detailed abuse he suffered at the hands of his first manager, who drugged, manipulated, was sexually aggressive towards him in the early stages of his career and “used to treat me like a piece of meat”.

In the singer’s upcoming memoir, The Voice Inside, Farnham reveals Darryl Sambell covertly gave him amphetamines to boost his energy before performances and snuck him sleeping pills in the morning.

“He drugged me for years and I had no f---ing idea.”

Disturbing details of Farnham’s abuse are contained in his upcoming memoir. Credit: WireImage

“I caught him one day. I was drinking from a cup of coffee and there was a pill only half-dissolved in the bottom. When I asked him what it was, Darryl replied, ‘That’s just to keep you awake,’” writes Farnham.

“For years, Darryl controlled where and when I worked, what I sang, what I wore, what I ate. He isolated me from friends and family, he tried to keep me away from Jill [Billman, Farnham’s wife], he drugged me, and he made me believe that all my success, everything I had, was because of him.

“I didn’t question any of it ... I still don’t know why I didn’t react more. I put it down to being young, under stress, tired and feeling unsure and insecure about my own instincts.”

Further revelations about Sambell are made by Farnham, including the manager’s predatory behaviour and unwanted sexual advances.

“At the time, in the early years, he was aggressively sexual toward me,” writes Farnham. “He would ‘try it on’ and I would say, ‘Darryl, no. Just leave me alone’, or, ‘It’s not going to happen.’

“I said it often enough that I can see now that this rejection turned his attraction into jealousy, hatred and a desire for control.

“I gave away control of my career, my direction and my life,” writes Farnham of Sambell’s abuse.

“I was a young bloke and I needed a manager.

“Many years have passed since then and, up until now, I’ve found it very hard to unpick what happened to me. But now that I’ve confronted on it, I look back on that time with sorrow. I’m annoyed at myself for being so gullible and trusting.”

When Farnham’s father suspected Sambell was keeping money from his son, he hired a lawyer to get answers. That news was leaked to The Truth and made headlines and threw Sambell into a rage against his client.

“He went berserk,” writes Farnham. “He was yelling, saying how dare I question him after all the things he’d done for me.”

Farnham describes the party scene at Sambell’s as “full-on” and that many of his manager’s older friends would hit on him, including actor Frank Thring.

“He never stopped trying it on … and my rejections seemed to entertain him.”

“Despite [Thring’s] outrageous behaviour, I would end up considering him a close friend,” writes Farnham.

Farnham fired Sambell in 1976 and Sambell died in 2001. Glenn Wheatley eventually became Farnham’s long-time friend and manager.

Farnham threw his support behind the Indigenous Voice to parliament referendum last year, letting his most famous song You’re the Voice be used in an advertising campaign for the Yes vote. The singer expressed regret that the referendum ultimately failed.

“When I was approached I said yes immediately, because in my mind, really, what’s it going to hurt?

“How does letting a group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives offering advice on government laws and policies that directly affect them hurt non-Indigenous people? I mean, it’s not going to cost anybody anything. I only wish more people had voted yes.”

Farnham also details meeting his wife, Jillian Billman, when the pair were working in a stage musical Charlie Girl.

“It was just like a lightning strike,” he writes.

“She was still a teenager when we first met and some people might think the age difference mattered, but to us it didn’t.”

He discusses the couple’s struggles starting a family, and how they considered adoption.

“Jill desperately wanted to be a mum and I desperately wanted to be a dad.

“The adoption process in Australia back then was very difficult ... so we went with an agency that helped Australian families adopt Indian children. We got 99 per cent of the way through the adoption paperwork and were close to having a child placed with us when Jill found out she was pregnant.

“It was a wonderful moment, but we then had to decide whether we should continue adopting. It was something we really agonised over, but in the end we decided not to proceed.”

Farnham’s memoir, The Voice Inside, will be released on October 30.

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