Aussie TV icon opens up about her 'horrific' high-profile divorce from co-star husband

Noni Hazlehurst has opened up about her 'horrific' high-profile break-up with ex-husband John Jarratt. 

The former Play School presenter, 71, made the comments on The Jess Rowe Podcast earlier this week.

Host Jessica Rowe asked Noni about the break up of her 11-year marriage to John, 72, in 1999.

The actress said that the pair were known as 'Australia's favourite couple,' as they co-starred on the lifestyle program Better Homes and Gardens for several years in the 1990s. 

'It was horrific. I felt very ashamed and shocked really,' said the Little Fish star. 

Noni revealed that she worried that Channel Seven, who employed her and John at the time, might sack the pair.

'I didn't know if we were going to both be without a job or how the network would react,' she said.

'They wanted us to do an interview together, which I absolutely refused to do because I knew that that would always be there forever. 

'It would come up just as every interview I do now has a clip of Play School. They would have used that clip. And I thought, "no, no way." 

'So yeah, it was, it was horrible, really horrible. But what can you do? You keep going. You just keep going,' the TV presenter said.

It comes as Noni has just released her memoir Dropping The Mask, where she claims she has been 'in shock ever since' her divorce with John.

'John and I had some wonderful times together – and then we didn’t,' Noni told Woman's Day.

'That's true of many relationships. They start off full of hope and optimism and, along the way, buried issues come to the surface.'  

Noni claims she knew her marriage was over when John had 'grown close' to someone on the Better Homes And Gardens production crew. 

'At that moment, I knew the marriage was over,' she said.

'We simply wanted different things. I wanted a family. John wanted another woman. 

'The ending of my previous relationships had been hard enough, but this was far worse. In some ways, I think I’ve been in shock ever since.'

Despite their relationship breakdown, Noni said her two children from her union with John - Charlie, 36, and William, 30 - had been a blessing.

'Whatever happened can't negate the joy they've brought me,' Noni said.

When contacted by Daily Mail Australia, John said: 'That was 20-odd years ago. It's prehistoric and I've got nothing more to say.' 

John, who played the iconic outback villain Mick Taylor in the Wolf Creek horror films, was Noni's second husband after the lauded actress was married to director Kevin Dobson from 1975 to 1978.

John has been married four times - twice to Rosa Miano, Noni, and third wife Cody Jarratt, whom he wed in 2011.