Natalie Bassingthwaighte and her fiancée Pip Loth have hinted they plan to marry this year, celebrating the one-year anniversary of their engagement with a gushing Instagram post on Sunday.
The post showed the pair holding hands after the moment Natalie proposed to Pip in New York.
"One year ago, in the midst of a whirlwind adventure in New York City, you surprised me with a trip to Niagara Falls for a weekend filled with incredible experiences and it was there that you asked me the most surprising question that there was simply no other answer to but a whole-hearted, emphatic 'yes'," Pip wrote.
"This past year has been filled with joy, laughter, wins, celebrations, many hours on FaceTime, moving boxes and so, so much love. You are my person. I am so very grateful. Maybe this year, we will plan a wedding."
Natalie replied in the comments section: "Aw baby! You make me a better person every day! Your generosity of spirit, kind heart and pure love shines bright. I am so lucky you said 'yes'! Let's do this life together."
Once anti-marriage after divorce
Bassingthwaighte, 50, is known as an actress and singer, having played Izzy Hoyland on the long-running Australian soap Neighbours and fronted the band Rogue Traders. She had previously said she would never walk down the aisle again after her divorce.
In an emotional extract from her memoir Love Like This, she admitted she had become anti-marriage after splitting from ex-husband Cameron McGlinchey, her Rogue Traders bandmate, in 2023 after 12 years together.
"I was never going to get married again. After Cam and I separated, I became increasingly disillusioned with the idea," she wrote.
"That kind of pain doesn't just vanish because you've moved on or found another relationship," she said. "It's the kind of grief you know will keep showing up at every big life milestone and in small, surprising ways."
By 2024, even after meeting and going public with Pip in November 2023, she had doubled down on that stance. "I was Natalie 'Never Getting Married' Bassingthwaighte. It became a badge I wore proudly, like proof I'd learned my lesson," she said.
A blunt rejection of convention
"F*** the marriage. F*** the house. F*** the white picket fence. Keep the kids and the dog, obviously," she added.
But the hardline stance began to crumble after a quiet exchange with Pip that reshaped her perspective on marriage entirely.
Natalie revealed Pip once told her: "You know, it wasn't even legal for me to get married until 2017." The comment, a reference to Australia's Marriage Law Postal Survey, which led to the legalisation of same-sex marriage in the country, struck a nerve.
"I felt silly that it hadn't dawned on me how much of a privilege it was that I'd been able to get married. Not once, but twice," Natalie said.
She said she came to understand that, for Pip, marriage symbolised something far deeper than tradition. "The more I listened to Pip the more I realised that for them, marriage wasn't about conformity; it was about being seen and chosen in a world that had for so long told them they weren't allowed to be," she said.
The proposal in New York
The defining moment came soon after, Natalie said, recalling that Pip told her: "I know how you feel, so I'll never ask."
"That comment made me rethink everything. I was rejecting an institution... but why was I holding on to that rejection so tightly?" she said.
Within months, Natalie had secretly begun planning a proposal, complete with a custom-designed ring and a romantic overseas setting. The couple travelled to New York for her 50th birthday, where she orchestrated an elaborate proposal involving a poet in a park, after an earlier attempt to recruit Noah Reid, best known for Schitt's Creek, fell through.
"I dropped to one knee and pulled out the non-bling bling," she wrote. "Spoiler: they said yes!"
Natalie shares daughter Harper, 16, and son Hendrix, 12, with ex-husband Cameron.
