Vanessa Amorosi trial: Tense scenes in the courtroom as star’s cleaner mother launches scathing attack on the pop star’s credibility – slamming her claims about her abusive dad and ‘the happiest day of her life’

A bitter feud between Australian singer Vanessa Amorosi and her estranged mother over a family home has deepened on the final day of their civil trial.

In his closing address in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Wednesday, Joyleen Robinson’s lawyer Daniel Harrison launched an extraordinary attack on the credibility of his client’s daughter.

“I think I’ve made it clear that she has failed to remember many dates and many events.

“She didn’t even know when the happiest day of her life was, when her biological father left,” he told the court.

Amorosi had previously told the trial that her biological father had been a violent and abusive man, who tortured her mother and family until the day he left them when she was just a child.

The singer broke down in tears while giving evidence in court explaining how she treated her stepfather Peter Robinson, who remains loyal to her mother, as her real father – a man she continued to love as such despite the ongoing dispute.

Mr Harrison made his comments as he tried to portray Amorosi in court as a brazen liar.

The lawyer had based his comments on the fact that Amorosi could not remember the deregistration of her tour group with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission last year.

He claimed that if Amorosi could not remember that, she could not be relied on her evidence in which she denied that she had entered into an agreement with her mother to give her the house in which she now lives.

Ms Robinson spent days on the witness stand last week explaining how Amorosi brokered the deal to give her the 20-hectare estate she has lived in for decades, atop green hills in lush Narre Warren North, 36km south-east of Melbourne’s Central Business District. .

Mrs. Robinson and her husband are confronted by the creature put on the street if the judge rules in favor of Amorosi.

“I invite you to form the view that the manner in which she answered that question three times – or failed to answer that question – was deliberately evasive and not the answer of an honest witness,” Mr Harrison said.

However, Judge Steven Moore – who is tasked with deciding the case – said they were serious claims that he had not put to Amorosi during his own cross-examination.

“In fairness, you had to tell Amorosi that she was not honest in her denials about that agreement,” he told Mr Harrison.

“She deserves to be given the opportunity to respond to such a serious allegation.”

Mrs Robinson had been a cleaner when Amorosi hit the big time after the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

It’s a job she continues to hold to this day, taking home about $1,000 a week.

She has no other assets in the disputed Narre Warren North property.

The civil lawsuit revealed that Amorosi earned just under $1 million in 2001 after appearing on screens during the 2000 Olympics.

But in late 2014, she was evicted from her home in the United States after apparently running out of money.

Last week, Amorosi denied ever giving the property to her mother, who she said had always called it “her dream home.”

Mrs Robinson claims Amorosi promised to buy her the property for $650,000 – money she would pay back to her daughter anytime she asked.

Mrs. Robinson claimed to have provided thousands of dollars to her daughter over the years when her daughter fell on hard times.

‘My daughter and I were like one person, I loved her, I thought she loved me no matter what she did. She was a good daughter,” she told the court last week.

“When I married my first husband, I was an abused wife. she always said she would make me a nice house and take care of me.

“I didn’t want to take that much money from my daughter, so we had an agreement that I thought she understood that if she needed the money, I would sell (my house), which would require working three jobs.”

Amorosi, 42, filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2021, claiming her mother committed “unconscionable conduct.”

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

“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.

“Boyfriends were enemies, husband was the enemy. She would be the only one there with the right intentions, and I believed it,” she said.

Amorosi, who flew to Australia from her home in Los Angeles to attend the trial, hired forensic accountants to investigate her mother’s handling of her wealth in 2014.

While the main battle concerns the Narre Warren North estate, Amorosi’s home in the US – which is owned by a family business that also owes $650,000 to the Westpac bank – is also at stake.

The trial is expected to end on Wednesday, with a decision made at a later date.