The heartbreaking story of how Vanessa Amorosi’s mother learned about her grandson – and the painful moment she lost her daughter

Vanessa Amorosi’s mother can practically pinpoint the moment she lost her daughter.

After enjoying worldwide success in the early 2000s, the Australian singer packed her bags and moved to the United States.

It was there she met who would become the father of her son Killian, who was born in 2016.

Amorosi would marry Brazilian martial arts trainer Rod Busby in October the following year.

Amorosi’s mother, Joyleen Robinson, has never met her grandchild.

She hadn’t even been notified of his birth, instead hearing about it on the news a thousand miles away from her son-to-be-gone Narre Warren North home.

She did not attend the wedding and has not spoken directly to her daughter for 15 years – about the time Amorosi relocated to Los Angeles, California.

Speaking in September, Ms Robinson told Daily Mail Australia she remembered feeling awkward the moment she met Busby.

He had come to Australia with Amorosi for a gig and came along with her to visit the family.  

‘You know when you meet a person for the first time … when you meet someone fresh and they’re all over you?’ she said. 

‘My nickname for all of my kids is Juicy Joy. I don’t know why they named me that, but they named me that. And an adult man, I didn’t know him from razoo, came into my house and said “Oh hello Juicy Joy” and I sort of cringed. 

‘That silly name is for my kids only. You know what I mean.’

Ms Robinson said she shared no ill will against Busby, whom she suspected had since split with her daughter. 

It is a claim Amorosi is yet to address, with Daily Mail Australia’s questions to her publicist ignored. 

Mr Busby was also contacted by Daily Mail Australia, but did not respond.  

Joyleen Robinson attends court during the Supreme Court of Victoria trial last year 

Ms Robinson said the couple had owned a gym together in the United States, which she suspected was paid for by Amorosi. 

Ms Robinson alleged that Amorosi’s move to the United States made her vulnerable to influence from lawyers, who persuaded her to pursue legal action against her. 

In October last year, the Australian singer entered the witness box in a Supreme Court trial in Melbourne to describe how her mother had allegedly mismanaged her finances and turned her family against her.

The Narre Warren North property that has torn the Amorosi family apart 

Amorosi’s horse remains at the Narre Warren North property 

A shack at the bottom of the Amorosi homestead has become run down 

The court heard the singer believed her mother had exploited her wealth during the height of her popularity when she was just a teenager.

‘She’s being very generous with my money,’ Amorosi said.

Amorosi told the court she had been brainwashed into believing her mother was the only person to be trusted to handle the millions of dollars she earned after becoming a star in 2000.

‘That had happened since (I) was young. No one was to be trusted. Like that is something that is just … not your crones, not your best friends, not your management, not your step dad. The person at the end of the day that you are to trust is your mum,’ Amorosi said, breaking into tears.

‘She’s there because she really loves me and doesn’t need anything else from me other than for me to be her daughter. And so as time progressed, and I made more money, and I became more successful, everybody became the enemy.

‘Boyfriends were enemies, husband was the enemy. She was to be the only one there with the right intentions, and I believed it.’

Amorosi, who flew to Australia from Los Angeles to attend the trial, had become suspicious of her mother’s dealings with her fortune in 2014 when she engaged forensic accountants to start looking into her mother’s handling of her wealth. 

After enduring a long trial that became a media circus, Amorosi won the case and was awarded the Narre Warren North home her mother claims she had been gifted. 

But it was not a complete victory for Amorosi, who was ordered to pay her mother $650,000 plus $219,486.33 in interest in the form of ‘restitution’ — a total of nearly $870,000. 

Amorosi claimed her mother exploited her fortune at the height of her fame 

Dave Stewart and Vanessa Amorosi of Eurythmics performs at Henley Festival 2024 at Leander Club on July 11, 2024

Ms Robinson claimed a brain aneurysm her daughter allegedly suffered before the birth of Killian made her forget the agreement. 

In court, Ms Robinson argued that she struck a deal with Amorosi in 2001 for full ownership of the Narre Warren North home in exchange for a future one-off payment of $650,000.

She claimed the agreement was that if Amorosi ever hit financial difficulty, Ms Robinson would pay her the original $650,000 purchase price of the Narre Warren home.

Evidence tendered during the trial showed Ms Robinson and her husband, Peter Robinson, transferred $710,000 from the sale of their home to pay down Ms Amorosi’s $1.2m California mortgage in 2014. 

‘You’re a mother and you’ve got four kids right, why in the hell would you give one daughter everything you you’ve worked for and forget the other three?’ Ms Robinson told Daily Mail Australia. 

With her fate now uncertain, Ms Robinson said she believed her daughter had been manipulated by lawyers. 

‘A lot of what’s happened, as a mum, doesn’t even sound like my daughter,’ Ms Robinson said. 

‘It sounds like her lawyer. It sounds like she’s got a good, strong lawyer that’s doing everything and Vanessa is the type of person, if she doesn’t understand it, she’ll just let them deal with it.’

While victory was awarded to Amorosi, it remains unclear how she intends to pay the restitution ordered by the court to her mother. 

The matter returned to the Supreme Court last month after negotiations between lawyers representing the mother and daughter failed.

Ms Amorosi’s barrister Joel Fetter said the singer was putting forward two of three options for a settlement between the pair following the court ruling.

In the first, Mr Fetter said Ms Amorosi would allow her mother to stay at the home if she was to be bought out of her stake in the regional property.

Ms Robinson could otherwise elect to sell the property, though the court was told there were disagreements about how and for how much that would occur.

In the second option, a net payment was to be made by Ms Amorosi to Ms Robinson after monies were exchanged on the order of costs between the pair.

On Thursday, Ms Robinson’s son Anthony told Daily Mail Australia his family would not be moving out until the restitution had been paid. 

‘The crazy truth is if Vanessa had just come to mum instead of doing all this, mum would have been happy to have sold the place. Even though we’d have nowhere to go. Once we lose this place we have nowhere to go,’ Mr Robinson said. 

‘Mum isn’t really concerned about losing the house. It’s losing her daughter. Losing her grandson. She is really set on wanting to meet her grandson.’