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You're the One That I Want...to Find: The Mystery of Olivia Newton-John's Missing Boyfriend · Jon's WTF Music Moments

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to John's WTF Music Moments, the show where
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: music history gets weird enough that you start asking, wait,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: are we sure this actually happened? And today's story is
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: truly one of those what the fuck moments, because this
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: story involves one of the biggest female pop stars of
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  Speaker 1: the 1970s and 1980s, a mysterious disappearance, a fishing boat,
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of missing person sightings, Mexico, private investigators, tabloid newspapers. Oh,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and there's a little bit of grease involved. And yet
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  Speaker 1: the missing person is not actually the famous pop star. Oh, no.
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  Speaker 1: It's her on-again, off-again boyfriend, who most people don't know
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  Speaker 1: and probably wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't mysteriously disappeared
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  Speaker 1: and if he wasn't dating a pop star. So let's
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  Speaker 1: start with the star, a name that you probably have
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  Speaker 1: heard of. Olivia Newton-John. She was an enormous star. Australian born, beautiful, talented,
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  Speaker 1: Grammy award winner with a string of hit singles in
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  Speaker 1: the 1970s like I Honestly Love You, Have You Never
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  Speaker 1: Been Mellow, and Please Mr. Please. And then in 1978,
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  Speaker 1: She starred in a little movie called Grease with some
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  Speaker 1: guy named John Travolta. Maybe you've heard of it? Grease
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  Speaker 1: became one of the biggest movie musicals ever made, and
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  Speaker 1: Olivia Newton-John became one of the most recognizable women in
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  Speaker 1: popular culture. And then, a few years later came the
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  Speaker 1: hit song, Physical. That song was fucking everywhere. Olivia had
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: gone from wholesome Australian sweetheart to international pop superstar. She
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  Speaker 1: sold more than 100 million records worldwide, had multiple number
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  Speaker 1: one hits, and won four Grammy Awards. This was not
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  Speaker 1: some obscure singer who had one hit in 1978 and
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  Speaker 1: then faded away into a drug-induced fog or went back
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: to selling insurance. This woman was a massive celebrity, and
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  Speaker 1: Olivia's personal life was obviously of enormous interest to the public.
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  Speaker 1: Which brings us to Patrick McDermott. Now you might be thinking,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Patrick who? Exactly. Because Patrick McDermott was not John Travolta.
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  Speaker 1: He was not a rock star. He was not a
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  Speaker 1: movie star. He was not a singer. He was not
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  Speaker 1: a record executive. Patrick was a cameraman. And after Olivia
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: separated from her first husband in 1995... Patrick became involved
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  Speaker 1: with Olivia in a long-term, on-again, off-again relationship that lasted
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  Speaker 1: roughly nine years. Nine years. This wasn't some guy Olivia
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  Speaker 1: met at a hotel bar in Vegas and hooked up
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  Speaker 1: with during a drunken one-night stand three weeks before he disappeared.
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  Speaker 1: They'd been together for years. Nine of them. And then
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: one day, Patrick went fishing. So who's Patrick McDermott? Well,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: he was born in Korea, South, not the weird part,
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  Speaker 1: North Korea. In 1956, it was adopted by an American
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  Speaker 1: family when he was just two years old. He eventually
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  Speaker 1: became a cameraman and worked in film and television production.
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  Speaker 1: He was married to actress Yvette Nippar in the early 1990s,
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  Speaker 1: and they had a son, Chance. Well, that marriage ended
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: in divorce. And then McDermott had some financial problems. So
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  Speaker 1: much so that he filed for bankruptcy in 2000 and
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  Speaker 1: had significant overdue child support obligations. All of these details
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  Speaker 1: become important in a little bit. Because after Patrick disappeared,
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  Speaker 1: people started asking a very simple question. Would a man
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  Speaker 1: with major financial problems have a reason to disappear on purpose? Well, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And that's when this story goes from sad to strange
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  Speaker 1: to Jesus Christ, what the hell is going on here?
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  Speaker 1: June 30th, 2005. Patrick McDermott boards a fishing boat, ironically
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  Speaker 1: called The Freedom, in San Pedro, California. It's an overnight
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  Speaker 1: fishing trip. 22 people are aboard. Patrick is traveling alone.
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  Speaker 1: The boat goes out. Everybody goes fishing. The boat comes back,
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  Speaker 1: and Patrick McDermott doesn't. Now, this is where we have
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  Speaker 1: to pause, because Patrick didn't leave behind some elaborate mystery.
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  Speaker 1: There's no note. Patrick left behind his wallet, his passport,
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  Speaker 1: his car keys, his car still sitting at the marina.
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  Speaker 1: Did Patrick McDermott deliberately disappear? Did he stage this? Did
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  Speaker 1: he decide, okay, you know what? I'm going to start
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  Speaker 1: a completely new life, but first, let me make sure
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  Speaker 1: I leave my wallet, passport, and car at the fucking marina.
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  Speaker 1: Then again, how else would you do it? So what
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  Speaker 1: happened to Patrick McDermott? Now here's where I want to
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  Speaker 1: make something very clear. Patrick McDermott is presumed dead. The
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  Speaker 1: official investigations did not establish that he survived. The U.S.
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  Speaker 1: Coast Guard investigated the disappearance of And a later marine
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  Speaker 1: safety investigation concluded that McDermott was likely lost at sea.
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  Speaker 1: A separate investigative effort did not find evidence establishing criminal action, suicide, accident, hoax,
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  Speaker 1: alien abduction, anything. So officially, Patrick was likely lost at sea.
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  Speaker 1: That's the basic explanation. Not necessarily that investigators proved exactly
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  Speaker 1: how he died. Not that they recovered his body, just
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  Speaker 1: that based on the available evidence, the most likely conclusion
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  Speaker 1: was that he was lost at sea. And honestly, it
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  Speaker 1: makes sense. If you're on an overnight fishing boat in
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  Speaker 1: the Pacific, you're alone. Nobody knows you and nobody notices
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  Speaker 1: that you're missing until later. It's entirely possible that you
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  Speaker 1: went overboard and nobody realized it. It's tragic. It's plausible.
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  Speaker 1: It's cold in the Pacific. And it would seem to
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  Speaker 1: be the end of the story. Except, well, you know
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  Speaker 1: how these things go. Because there was no body. People
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  Speaker 1: start wondering, what if Patrick didn't drown? What if he
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  Speaker 1: deliberately disappeared? And this is where the financial stuff enters
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  Speaker 1: the picture. Patrick had financial problems. Big financial problems. He
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  Speaker 1: had filed for bankruptcy and had substantial debts, including child support.
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  Speaker 1: And there were later reports that investigators discovered he had
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  Speaker 1: withdrawn his remaining savings shortly before the fishing trip. Hmm.
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  Speaker 1: Private investigators and media reports later advanced the idea that
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  Speaker 1: perhaps Patrick McDermott had staged his disappearance and escaped his
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  Speaker 1: financial obligations. But here's the important part. That was a theory.
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  Speaker 1: It was never established as fact. And then? Then there
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  Speaker 1: were sightings. People claimed they'd seen Patrick. And where did
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  Speaker 1: they supposedly see him? Mexico. Of course it was Mexico.
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  Speaker 1: Where else would you go? Because if you're going to
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  Speaker 1: fake your death and start a new life, you don't
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  Speaker 1: move to Cedar Rapids. You move to Mexico. Soon there
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  Speaker 1: were reports of people spotting Patrick in Mexico and elsewhere
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  Speaker 1: in Central America. And this wasn't just some random guy
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  Speaker 1: on Facebook saying, hey, I think I saw Olivia Newton-John's
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  Speaker 1: boyfriend at the Taco Bell. No, no, no. There were
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  Speaker 1: a variety of reported sightings. Private investigators got involved. Media
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  Speaker 1: organizations got involved. NBC's Dateline got involved. There was even
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  Speaker 1: a website devoted to finding Patrick. Investigators were looking at
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  Speaker 1: reported sightings in trying to determine whether Patrick McDermott was
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  Speaker 1: actually still alive. And then things got even crazier. Because
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: investigators eventually claimed they had located Patrick McDermott living in
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  Speaker 1: Mexico under another name. That name? Pat Kim. Pat Kim.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, come on. You're going to fake your death.
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  Speaker 1: at least have the decency to come up with something
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  Speaker 1: really cool and mysterious sounding like Pierre Delacote, Raymond Hawthorne Bradley,
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  Speaker 1: Armand Asante. All right, never mind. The last one's already taken.
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  Speaker 1: But no, apparently, Pat Kim. And here's the important part.
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  Speaker 1: Pat Kim wasn't completely pulled out of thin air. Reports
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  Speaker 1: connected the name to McDermott's birth identity. So investigators claimed
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  Speaker 1: they had found him living near Puerto Vallarta. We found him!
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  Speaker 1: Now this is where the story gets absolutely fucking ridiculous.
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  Speaker 1: Like it wasn't already. People were convinced that they had,
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  Speaker 1: without any doubt, finally found Patrick McDermott. But the problem
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  Speaker 1: was nobody could conclusively prove it. No definitive DNA confirmation.
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  Speaker 1: No verified, authenticated direct contact establishing McDermott, establishing that the
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  Speaker 1: man in question was Patrick. No incontrovertible proof of life,
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  Speaker 1: just Patrick's sightings, and none was conclusively established as him.
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  Speaker 1: The alleged sightings became so numerous that the story essentially
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  Speaker 1: developed a life of its own. Then, well, photographs started appearing.
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  Speaker 1: tabloids would publish pictures of some guy in Mexico and
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: essentially say, hey, is this Patrick? And you're looking at
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the photograph thinking, I don't know, is it? It kind
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  Speaker 1: of looks like him, but it also kind of looks
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  Speaker 1: like the guy on the new Hawaii Five-0 reboot. Then
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  Speaker 1: somebody else would say, nah, that's not Patrick. There was
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  Speaker 1: even a Canadian man named Wes who bore resemblance to
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  Speaker 1: Patrick and was photographed while visiting Mexico. The tabloids became
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  Speaker 1: interested in him. He did not appreciate being mistaken for
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  Speaker 1: a missing man and reportedly went to considerable lengths to
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  Speaker 1: establish that he was not Patrick McDermott. Sightings would continue,
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  Speaker 1: but apparently nobody could conclusively confirm whether any of these
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  Speaker 1: people were Patrick. And then there's the facts. And by facts,
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  Speaker 1: I mean facsimile. That's right. A private investigator involved in
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  Speaker 1: the case received a fax in 2009 that was supposedly
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  Speaker 1: sent on Patrick's behalf. The message claimed that Pat was safe,
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  Speaker 1: had started a new life, had committed no crime, and
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  Speaker 1: just wanted to be left alone. Now, we don't know
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  Speaker 1: that Patrick himself sent the fax. We don't even know
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  Speaker 1: for certain who sent it. But if you're trying to
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  Speaker 1: make a disappearance look like the world's strangest mystery, A
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  Speaker 1: mysterious fax claiming you're alive is certainly one hell of
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  Speaker 1: a way to do it. But who the hell was
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  Speaker 1: still sending faxes in 2009? Send an email. And because
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  Speaker 1: this story apparently needed one more bizarre detail, oh yes,
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  Speaker 1: the report also claimed that Patrick had supposedly started a
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  Speaker 1: new life with a German woman. Because, of course he did.
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  Speaker 1: In this... Folks, it's where we have to separate the
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  Speaker 1: WTF from the facts. What do we know? Patrick McDermott
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  Speaker 1: went on an overnight fishing trip on June 30, 2005.
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  Speaker 1: He disappeared during that trip. His wallet, passport, and car
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  Speaker 1: keys were left behind. His car remained at the marina.
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  Speaker 1: He was never found. The Coast Guard investigated. The official
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  Speaker 1: conclusion was that he was likely lost at sea. and
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  Speaker 1: Patrick remains presumed dead. Those are the documented facts. What
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  Speaker 1: about Mexico? There have been unverified reports and alleged sightings.
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  Speaker 1: There have been private investigators who believed he survived. There
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  Speaker 1: have been media reports claiming he started a new life
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  Speaker 1: in Mexico. There have been photographs of men who people
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  Speaker 1: claimed looked like Patrick. There have even been claims that
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  Speaker 1: investigators located him. there was that bizarre 2009 fax claiming
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  Speaker 1: he was alive. But none of that has produced definitive
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  Speaker 1: proof that Patrick McDermott survived. And that's the important distinction
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  Speaker 1: because people say they saw him. We have proof. It's
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  Speaker 1: not the same as we have proof that he's alive.
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  Speaker 1: And at some point we need to stop and ask,
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  Speaker 1: what would he have gone through or why would he
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  Speaker 1: have gone through Such an elaborate stunt to fake his
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  Speaker 1: own death. Just because he owed some back child support payments?
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  Speaker 1: Because he had some financial challenges? Because he wanted to
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  Speaker 1: escape the drama of his famous on-again, off-again girlfriend? If
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  Speaker 1: you want to do that, you tell them you need
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  Speaker 1: some space. You block them on Facebook. You unmatch them
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  Speaker 1: on Tinder. You don't fake your own death and go
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  Speaker 1: hang out on a beach in Puerto Vallarta. Or maybe
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  Speaker 1: you do. And through all of this, There's Olivia Newton-John.
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  Speaker 1: Think about the bizarre nature of this for a moment.
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  Speaker 1: You are Olivia Newton-John. You starred in Grease. You had
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  Speaker 1: worldwide hit records. You sang physical and wore that iconic
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  Speaker 1: headband in the music video. You were one of the
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  Speaker 1: most famous women in the world, and your longtime boyfriend
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  Speaker 1: goes on a fishing trip and disappears. Then for years afterward,
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  Speaker 1: every few months, somebody is telling the press, oh, we
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  Speaker 1: found Patrick, we found Patrick. And Olivia is presumably sitting
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: there thinking, can somebody please just tell me what the
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  Speaker 1: fuck happened? Olivia herself apparently remained skeptical of the theory
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  Speaker 1: that Patrick had faked his death, even though rumors persisted
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  Speaker 1: for years. And eventually, Olivia Newton-John sadly passed away in 2022.
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  Speaker 1: There's no satisfying end to this story. There's no body.
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  Speaker 1: There's no confirmed escape. There's no verified Mexican retirement. There's
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  Speaker 1: no dramatic confession. There's just Patrick McDermott, a cameraman. Most
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  Speaker 1: of us probably never would have heard of were it
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  Speaker 1: not for his famous girlfriend, missing since 2005. And that's
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: why this story belongs on John's WTF Music Moments. Not
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: because we know Patrick secretly survived. We don't, though I
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: kind of hope he did. Not because we know he
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  Speaker 1: deliberately disappeared. We don't. And not because we can prove
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  Speaker 1: exactly how he died. We can't. The official conclusion is
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: that he was likely lost at sea. But because once
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: you combine Olivia Newton-John, a nine-year relationship, a fishing boat,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: a missing wallet, a missing passport, car keys left behind,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: a car sitting at the marina, financial problems, Mexico, Private investigators, Dateline, NBC,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: alleged sightings, a supposed alias of mysterious facts, and enough
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  Speaker 1: tabloid headlines to keep the story alive for two decades,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: you wind up with one of the strangest celebrity disappearance
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: stories of the modern era. Patrick McDermott disappeared on June 30, 2005.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: He's still presumed dead. The Coast Guard's conclusion remains the same,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: that he was likely lost at sea. But the theories,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the sightings, the alleged Mexican hideout, the supposed new identity,
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  Speaker 1: those are where the WTF begins. I'm John, and this
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: has been John's WTF Music Moments. Thank you.