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 almost 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.

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

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

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

She had not even been informed of his birth, but had heard about it on the news, a thousand miles away from her future son’s home in Narre Warren North.

She did not attend the wedding and has not spoken directly to her daughter in fifteen years – about when Amorosi moved to Los Angeles, California.

Ms Robinson told Daily Mail Australia in September that she remembered feeling uncomfortable the moment she met Busby.

He had come to Australia with Amorosi for a performance and accompanied her to visit the family.

“You know when you meet someone for the first time… when you meet someone new and they’re all over you?” she said.

“My nickname for all my children is Juicy Joy. I don’t know why they called me that, but they called me that. And a grown man, I didn’t know him from razoo, came into my house and said, “Oh hi Juicy Joy,” and I cringed a little.

“That crazy name is just for my kids. You know what I mean.’

Mrs Robinson said she shared no ill will towards Busby, who she suspected had since split from her daughter.

It is a claim Amorosi has yet to address, ignoring Daily Mail Australia’s queries to her publicist.

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

Joyleen Robinson was present in court during the trial in the Supreme Court of Victoria last year

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

Ms Robinson claimed Amorosi’s move to the United States left her vulnerable to the influence of lawyers, who persuaded her to take legal action against her.

In October last year, the Australian singer took the witness stand in a High Court trial in Melbourne to describe how her mother had mismanaged her finances and turned her family against her.

The Narre Warren North estate that tore the Amorosi family apart

Amorosi’s horse remains on the grounds of Narre Warren North

A hut at the bottom of Amorosi’s farm is dilapidated

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

“She is very generous with my money,” Amorosi said.

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

“That’s been happening since (I was) young. No one could be trusted. Like that’s something that’s just… not your boyfriends, not your best friends, not your management, not your stepdad. The person you should ultimately trust is your mother,” Amorosi said, breaking into tears.

“She’s there because she really loves me and doesn’t need anything from me other than me being her daughter. And as time went on, and I made more money and became more successful, everyone became the enemy.

“Boyfriends were enemies, husband was the enemy. She would 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 handling of her fortune in 2014 when she hired forensic accountants to investigate her mother’s handling of her wealth.

After enduring a lengthy trial that became a media circus, Amorosi won the case and was awarded the house in Narre Warren North, which her mother claims she had received as a gift.

But it wasn’t 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 almost $870,000.

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

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

Mrs. Robinson claimed that a brain aneurysm her daughter suffered before Killian’s birth caused her to 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 house in return for a future one-off payment of $650,000.

She claimed the agreement was that if Amorosi ever got into financial difficulties, Mrs Robinson would pay her the original $650,000 purchase price of the Narre Warren house.

Evidence presented at trial showed that Ms. Robinson and her husband, Peter Robinson, transferred $710,000 from the sale of their home in 2014 to pay off Ms. Amorosi’s $1.2 million California mortgage.

‘You are a mother and you have four children. Why on earth would you give one daughter everything you’ve worked for and forget about the other three?’ Ms Robinson told Daily Mail Australia.

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

“A lot of what happened as a mother doesn’t even sound like my daughter,” Ms. Robinson said.

‘It sounds like her lawyer. It sounds like she has a good, strong lawyer who will do everything, and Vanessa is the type of person; if she doesn’t understand, she just leaves it to them.’

Although Amorosi was awarded the victory, it remains unclear how she plans to pay the court-ordered restitution to her mother.

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

Ms Amorosi’s lawyer Joel Fetter said the singer put forward two of three options for a settlement between the couple after the court ruling.

In the first, Mr Fetter said Ms Amorosi would allow her mother to remain in the house if she were bought out of her interest in the regional property.

Ms Robinson could otherwise choose to sell the property, although the court was told there were disagreements over how and for how much that would happen.

The second option required Ms Amorosi to make a net payment to Ms Robinson, after the funds had been exchanged between the two in order of cost.

On Thursday, Ms Robinson’s son told Daily Mail Australia his family would not move until the restitution was paid.

‘The crazy truth is that if Vanessa had just come to Mom instead of doing all this, Mom would have been happy to sell the house. Even if we wouldn’t have anywhere to go. Once we lose this place, we won’t have anywhere to go,” Mr Robinson said.

“Mom isn’t really worried about losing the house. It loses its daughter. Losing her grandson. She really wants to meet her grandson.’