Angry KimI didn't kill Michael
Angry KimA year later, Kym Wilson is still haunted by Michael Hutchence's death.
Since Kym Wilson unwittingly became the last person to see Michael Hutchence alive - a year ago - she has had to cope with reports of her own death, rumours of kinky threesomes, claims she had killed the INXS frontman in a bizarre sexual ritual and suggestions that she fled to America to escape investigation.
Having done all the gossip rounds in the past few months, these allegations have been reignited with the first anniversary of Michael's suicide. All the while, Kym has battled to hold her head up, firm in belief that she was just an unfortunate pawn in the search by the media and Michael's friends and fans for a reason as to why he died in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Double Bay a year ago last Sunday.
The most troubling rumour that Kym (who left Sydney 6 months ago to study acting in the US) would like to dispel is that she and her then boyfriend Andrew Rayment, a Sydney barrister, were involved in Michael's tragic death.
"There's no relationship between us and his death", she says, shaking her head with resignation. Clearly, she is fed up with this accusation.
"It was blatantly stated by the police that there was no direct correlation with me spending time with him and what happened - there were many hours between our meeting and his death."
Nearly 10 hours before the time at which (the coroner determined) Michael died, Kym and Andrew met him in the hotel bar and then got the lift to his room where they ordered strawberry daiquiris and champagne. The couple left at 5am. By 1pm the rumour mill was in overdrive.
"Not only was his death the tragic end of someone I had so much respect and affection for, but everything that followed was a surreal nightmare," says Kym, who admits having a sexual relationship with the rock star when she was still a teenager.
"It was the whole Chinese whispers game that you used to play in school. Supposedly, someone's father had been in the police station when I was arrested for manslaugter. Then someone's uncle was in the morgue and had seen my body. The whole thing got completely out of control. I think it was because he had suicided and there were no answers to his death."
With the release of Vince Lovegrove's biography next year, Kym says she will be one of the first to read his account. Already, Vince who was also the last person to interview the rock star, has hinted at a conspiracy to cover up what really happened.
"From what I know of Vince, he's a very open and loving man so I think the book will be a wonderful tribute," Kym says. "I'll be interested to see what he thinks the cover up was."
In his book, Vince asks why Kym and Andrew's statements were never made public and why an open inquiry was never held into Michael's death.
"I have no idea why he would say that - I thought all police statements were kept private," Kym says. "I knew the toxicology report said there were things in his body, but he had taken cocaine 48 hours prior to his death and they (the police) weren't interested in investigating that because of the timing."
Kym says: "I made one statement but I spoke to the police a number of times. There was a not a hell of a lot I could tell the police beyond that, for several hours, Michael and my boyfriend and I chatted and had a few drinks; and that several hours after we left, he died. I was certainly available to talk to the police again if they had any other questions."
There are other elements of Michael's final hours that Kym may expect Vince to touch on in his book - and she'd like the right of reply before the whole 'sordid business' gets out of hand again. "I definately was not involved in any sexual activity," she says. "I was there with my boyfriend and we certainly didn't have the kind of relationship where we would be involved in anything along those lines. There are all these people saying it was some sort of sordid threesome. Well, it's laughable."
After six months of constant pressure following the tragedy, Kym left Australia for a three month scholarship in the US, assisted by the Winston Churchill Fellowship that she had wona few months before Michael's suicide. She first attended the Shakespearian Company in Massachusetts for a month-long intensive workshop and says she underwent a life-changing experience. "You have to have really honed access to your emotions as an actor," she says. "Because of that, it's half like being in therapy and half like being in acting school."
Kym says it was during one of the workshops that she finally came to terms with Michael's death - but exorcising her demons was a painful and difficult process.
"Although I was still sad and I missed Michael, I thought I had come to grips with what had happened and that when I went away I was moving on," she says. "I thought it was a chapter of my life and I was closing it, but I think my subconscious had protected me and stuffed things down so far, I couldn't access my feelings. I learnt you can run but you can't hide."
"The Shakespearian course showed me I still had a lot of grief and a lot of things to deal with."
Two weeks into the course, Kym was assigned a 'scene partner' to work on a passage from Richard III which deals with a confrontation between Richard and Lady Anne as she stands over the coffin of her dead father-in-law, who had been killed by Richard.
"I thought it was a great scene and I saw no relevance between it and what had happened to me - that's how disassociated I was from my feelings. There was a whole monologue about death and the script read: "Thou canst make no excuse current but to hang thyself."
"I sat there with my scene partner as we focused on every word individually and I started getting flashes in my head about Michael and the hanging and the horrible parts of the loss I was feeling. What it did to me - which is kind of fascinating physiologically - is that I started losing my voice. It was like I had a pressure on my throat that was stopping me. I started seeing three of the scene partner, I was going completely weird. I was losing my balance on the chair."
Sensing the terror, the teacher asked Kym what was wrong. When she explained what had happened to Michael, he suggested she write a letter to him so she could purge herself. But the timing was wrong and Kym felt she couldn't do it. After three days of being unable to talk, Kym and the rest of the class prepared to finish their session in stage combat, the culmination of which was a strangulation class.
"I started doing the strangulation with my partner and a whole wave of grief came over me and I started sobbing hysterically for 10 minutes," Kym recalls. "Straight after that, we had to write how we felt about the strangulation - and that's when I wrote my letter to Michael. It was a very private thing. It was a "why did it happen", it was the acceptance and it was a relief."
Kym is now scheduled to shoot a movie in LA.
"I really like the script", she says. "Its' called Friday Night - A Nineties Kinda Eighties Movie. It's a teen genre film but it's also for anyone who lived through the eighties. It's a comedy and it's also a vampire film. I play a vampire called Alexis. She doesn't suck blood but she's got all sorts of evil powers. I have to re-acquire my kick boxing skills for the role."
Between studying Shakespeare and a six week course with the Moscow Art Theatre at Harvard, Kym had a few weeks in New York, where she caught up with her old friends Gia Carides and Anthony La Paglia.
"I went to see Anthony in A View From a Bridge which was a wonderful experience. Afterwards he dragged me out onto the stage and I was standing in the middle of this huge, empty Broadway Theatre - it was incredible. I thought, next time I'll be standing here after one of my performances."
Intending to return to her Scotland Island home after her stint at Harvard, Kym rang her mates Naomi Watts and Rebecca Rigg in LA and told them to expect her for a week long visit. She also caught up with Melissa George and Russell Crowe, who both gave her a place to stay for a few weeks.
"I always thought LA was extremely superficial", says Kym, former star of Brides of Christ and A Country Practice. "But things changed when I got there and auditioned for Friday Night - I got the part and I was there for nearly three months."
Kym who returned home last week to spend Christmas with her family, has found an agent who says she doesn't have to be based in Tinseltown to get work.
"He says that, while I am in Australia, he can still get me work in LA," says Kym. "I can base myself in Australia and travel from job to job, wherever the work takes me."