People News

Hugh Jackman: Mum abandoned me when I was eight

Oct 24, 2012, 21:01 GMT

Hugh Jackman

Hugh Jackman 'never' questioned his mother's love for him when she walked out on the actor when he was eight years old.

The 44-year-old star admits it was 'horrible' hearing people talking about him and his siblings - brothers Ralph and Ian, and sisters Sonia and Zoe - when his mum Grace left Australia for the UK during his younger years, and while he didn't realise until he was '12 or 13' that she wasn't coming back , he knew she loved him.

He said: 'The thing I never felt, and I know this might sound strange, I never felt that my mum didn't love me. I've spoken about it at length with her since and I know she was struggling. She was in hospital after I was born suffering from post-natal depression. There wasn't a support network for her here.

'One of the main things I remember is that horrible feeling that people were talking about you and looking at you because it was odd for the mother to leave.'

Hugh has two children, Oscar, 12, and seven-year-old Ava, with wife Deborra-Lee Furness and admits becoming a father really helped him to understand life's trials and tribulations.

He added to Australian Women's Weekly magazine: 'There comes a certain point in life when you have to stop blaming other people for how you feel or the misfortunes in your life. You can't go through life obsessing about what might have been.'