Donny Osmond paid tribute this week to Olivia Newton-John, the Grammy Award–winning singer who passed away Monday at age 73. Newton-John had been battling breast cancer on and off since the 1990s.
Newton John was a guest on an episode of The Donny and Marie show on September 22, 1978, appearing in sketches and singing “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease as a duet with Donny.
Osmond posted a clip of that duet on social media this week, along with this tribute: “Singing with Olivia was one of the greatest moments for me during The Donny and Marie Show. I can only imagine how wonderful heaven is, now that this beautiful angel is there. My dear friend, Olivia, I Love You. I Honestly Love You.”
The last two sentences of the tribute are a reference to Newton-John’s 1974 number-one hit single “I Honestly Love You.”
Osmond and Newton-John have remained friends over the years, and Newton-John and her husband, John Easterling, attended Donny and Marie’s show in Las Vegas in October 2019. Osmond posted to Facebook a picture that the group took together.
And in 2015, Osmond posted to Facebook about another encounter with Newton-John in Vegas. “I jumped onstage with Olivia Newton-John tonight at the Flamingo Las Vegas,” he wrote. “I told the audience that I used to have her poster on my wall when I was a teenager. It’s okay. My wife already knows about that part of my life. She's cool with it.”
