{"id":461858,"date":"2026-02-06T08:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T08:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/461858\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T08:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T08:02:13","slug":"richard-marx-what-happened-to-the-american-singer-and-what-is-he-doing-now-explainer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/461858\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Marx: What happened to the American singer and what is he doing now? | Explainer"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a teenager, a young Richard Marx<\/a> would longingly gaze at the face of Aussie legend Olivia Newton-John<\/a> on her album covers. <\/p>\n

Little did he know he would grow up to become one of her closest friends.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The American singer<\/a> ended up meeting her sooner than expected, at age 19 when he had been working on the soundtrack for her film, Two of a Kind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Watch the videos above\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"WhatAs a teen, Richard Marx had a crush on Olivia Newton-John. (YouTube)<\/p>\n

“We hit it off and wrote a few songs together,” he<\/a> recalled.<\/p>\n

“I was madly in love with her prior to that \u2026 When I actually met her, that feeling went into warp speed. But she was married to Matt Lattanzi and I never had a crack.”<\/p>\n

But that didn’t stop him from imagining it. <\/p>\n

READ MORE:\ufeff Why are people still playing with Tamagotchis?<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:\ufeff The sex education book generations of Aussie kids grew up with<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:\ufeff In the ’90s, potpourri was in every home – and then it vanished<\/a><\/p>\n

“I used to play the Xanadu soundtrack in my bedroom and sing the Cliff Richard part of Suddenly and pretend to be him. I’d close my eyes and picture Olivia looking back at me,” he continued.<\/p>\n

“Cut to 12 years ago at a charity event and I’m on the bill with Olivia. The organiser suggested we do a song together.<\/p>\n

“Olivia asked what I wanted to sing. That night I stood on a stage under the lights and looked straight into her eyes and sang Suddenly with her. Boy it felt good.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marx was somewhat of a prodigy, first being discovered by Lionel Richie at age 17 when the young boy’s tape fell into his hands. <\/p>\n

For a daily dose of 9honey, subscribe to our newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Years later, he was one of the Aussie singer’s closest friends. (Supplied\/Today)Marx has had many hits over the years. (Today Extra)<\/p>\n

Richie told him to come to Los Angeles to start his career, where he met a number of instrumental people.<\/p>\n

He officially debuted with a self-titled album in 1987, which ended up getting four hit singles and went triple platinum. <\/p>\n

The lead single, Don’t Mean Nothing, hit No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on Billboard’s Album Rock chart.\u00a0He even ended up marrying the female lead from the video, Cynthia Rhodes, but they divorced in April 2014. <\/p>\n

He has been married to Daisy Fuentes, a Cuban-American actress and comedian, since 2015.<\/p>\n

\"MusicianMarx was married to actress Cynthia Rhodes until 2014. (Getty)\"RichardThe singer has been married to Daisy Fuentes, a Cuban-American actress and comedian, since 2015. (WireImage)<\/p>\n

He continued his early career with a series of other No. 1 hits including\u00a0Hazard, Right Here Waiting, Hold On to the Nights, Endless Summer Nights, and Satisfied. <\/p>\n

He also became the only male artist in history to have his first seven singles reach the top 5 of the Billboard charts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Iconic<\/a><\/p>\n

The most iconic characters from Australian films<\/p>\n

His latest work is the album Songwriter, released in 2022. The top-charting singer was recently in Australia for The Songwriter Tour.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Marx became a coach on The Voice Australia, alongside Melanie C, Ronan Keating, and Kate Miller-Heidke.<\/p>\n

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE<\/a>: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, lifestyle and opinion via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a teenager, a young Richard Marx would longingly gaze at the face of Aussie legend Olivia Newton-John…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-461858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}