Savage Garden’s Darren Hayes Reveals Mental Health Struggles At The Height Of Popularity

Vocalist Darren Hayes opened up about how he struggled with mental health at the height of Savage Garden’s popularity.

Savage Garden was an Australian musical duo that became popular in the mid-1990s until the early 2000s with their string of hits including “Truly, Madly, Deeply,” and “I Knew I Loved You.”

The duo disbanded in 2001 after reaching global fame by selling 26 million albums. Despite this, Hayes said he was “deeply unhappy” and even contemplated suicide due to depression.

In 1997, Savage Garden’s “I Want You” peaked at No. 5 on Billboard Top 100 after it was incessantly played at the intro of the “Rosie O’Donnell show.” He said his confident façade was nothing compared to the deep sadness brewing inside of him despite their success.

“To the casual observer, I appeared confident,” Hayes said in an opinion piece published by HuffPost. “But my bravado was a carefully crafted persona, built to protect me from years of bullying at school, denial and shame about my sexuality, and a mask to hide the rapidly increasing depression that would soon become overwhelming.”

It was around that time, Hayes said, that he felt the “full force” of mental illness that he inherited from his mother’s side and is mostly triggered by family trauma.

“I was beginning to experience the full force of a mental illness that had seeded itself when I was a child, partly inherited from my mother’s side of the family but mostly activated by trauma that had begun incubating from the age of 3 after my exposure to extreme violence growing up with a violent, alcoholic father who physically and emotionally abused my mother,” he explained.

Hayes ended his marriage with his college sweetheart in 2000 and Savage Garden was disbanded in 2001. In the same year, Hayes came out as gay. He started seeing a psychiatrist in 2002 which he said was an important step in overcoming the pain of childhood trauma.

The therapy sessions encouraged the singer to be more open about his sexuality. In 2005, Hayes married his boyfriend, Richard Cullen.

Today, Hayes said he “no longer feels the shame and stigma” regarding his sexuality or mental health.

The singer's latest single “Poison Blood,” released in June, talks about his mental health as both a “blessing, a gift and a curse.” He will embark on concert tours in Australia and U.K. in 2023 and will feature songs from Savage Garden and his solo hits.