A two-word email ended a marriage, but started a romance between former housemates

Jacqui Hunt, 60, former lead singer of ’90s band Single Gun Theory, first met fellow muso Brian Conolly, 62, when they were teenagers. Decades later, they’d reunite in a collaboration that would be more than musical.

JACQUI: I was a rebellious child. I was expelled from school for a crazy haircut, and left home at 16 to move into a share house in Darlington [in Sydney]. It was 1982. There were four guys in the house, including Brian. They were a little older than me, and most were musicians. We started a band called The Guinea Pigs, with me as lead singer. I was Piglet One and Brian was Piglet Two. We were just friends, but he was very supportive. I wanted to write songs and so, one Saturday, he grabbed his guitar and we went to Centennial Park. I was young, and lots of people were telling me what to do, but Brian always took me seriously.

After a year, Brian left the band and the house broke up. I cried because I thought my life had fallen apart, too. I moved to Surry Hills and studied fashion at tech. I also started singing with an electronic band called Single Gun Theory. We toured the US and Canada and developed a solid following.

I saw Brian occasionally through the years, just as friends. Then, in 2012, we reconnected through Facebook. He was still making music and he asked me to come round and see what he was doing. When the time came, I thought, “This is the last thing I wanna do”. But it was lovely seeing him: he was so positive, which wasn’t what I was used to. At that time, my marriage was in a bad place.

We kept meeting up to jam, and I started to develop feelings for Brian, who’d been separated from his wife for seven years. But I was still married. Then he went to Europe. On the way there, he emailed me a poem he’d written about building his own planet and “taking your sky with me”. On the spur of the moment, I turned it into a song.

A few days later, I was at home one afternoon, crying, knowing my marriage was over. I opened my emails and saw one from Brian, who was in Italy, saying, “ Ti amo. ” I sent him the song I’d made as an MP3. He got it on his phone when he was sitting in the Kuala Lumpur exit lounge. I knew immediately I needed to see him, that it was the most important thing in my life. The day he arrived back, I met him at his house. Then I went home and told my husband I was in love with someone else.

I moved straight in with Brian, which was radical, and then my divorce took years. And all I wanted was peace: one day, I met Brian’s ex-wife in the driveway of his house – she was collecting one of their daughters. I said, “If you want to reconcile with him, just tell me,” and she said, “Oh, God, no!”

We’ve been through a lot: my father died of cancer in 2020, my mum died suddenly, also of cancer, in 2022 and, in 2024, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Brian has always been there. Every morning, he makes me coffee. He makes me laugh. We make up silly band names like The Turtle Minders because I think minding turtles would be a cool job. Or maybe it’s hugely stressful? We also ended up collaborating on my new album, Desiderium .