Maite Kelly talks about the dark side of success: when the millions came rolling in, the megalomania also took hold of her father, Dan Kelly.
From busking on the streets to filling stadiums, the Kelly Family experienced an unprecedented rise to fame in the 1990s. But fame came at a price. “When the millions really started rolling in with the success of ‘Over the Hump’ in 1994, there was a phase where all that money wasn’t good for some of my family,” pop singer Maite Kelly, 45, said in an interview with Die Zeit.
“It messes with your head,” says the singer, looking back on the time when her eighth album sold millions. The Kelly Family stormed the charts, won awards, and filled entire stadiums. Their simple hippie lifestyle turned into a huge business. “And at some point, this business became unhealthy for the family,” Maite admits.
Patriarch Dan Kelly was apparently hit particularly hard. “During that time, I didn’t recognize my father,” Maite recalls. He was completely overwhelmed. Dan wanted to maintain the family’s independence, but at the same time had to deal with “enormous commercial temptations.” “He got involved with the wrong people, the wrong advisors, and there was a lot of conflict in the family,” the musician reports. “Megalomania swept some people in my family away. My father was not immune to it either. Yes, megalomania took hold of him too.”
Life in a dangerous bubble
Maite Kelly also describes how the isolation of success became a trap. “The bubble you live in when you have commercial success is dangerous: You only live in hotels, you’re constantly traveling, it’s a life out of reality.“ This parallel world carries the danger of setting yourself up in a kind of private empire, ”surrounded only by people who are paid by you or who profit from you.”
The consequences: “You lose your inner compass, your inner grounding. At some point, your sense of humor disappears too.” As an example, she cites: “You rent a jet and can no longer make jokes about it because you no longer understand how completely bizarre it is.”
Dan Kelly: Protector with an iron will
It all started so innocently. For years, the family led a frugal life as street musicians in the US and Europe, with little money but a lot of freedom. Dan Kelly protected his children in a special way. “Choreographers or photographers were never allowed to tell us how to pose,” Maite recalls. “He wanted us to express ourselves and move the way we wanted.” For the youngest daughter, the stage was a playground. “As a child, I never had stage fright because I was part of such a large group,” she says. The focus was never on her alone. “It was a game for me: dancing, singing, jackalaka!”
But Dan Kelly had already gone through a difficult struggle before his great success. After the death of his wife Barbara-Ann, when Maite was two years old, he fell into alcoholism for a time. Finally, he sought help from Alcoholics Anonymous. The singer recalls: “My father stopped drinking from one day to the next. During withdrawal, he walked around outside for hours.” He fought his way through withdrawal for 40 days. “He literally took it step by step to get out of this tragedy, out of this great pain in his life,” says Maite Kelly.
