Home and Away’s Melissa George now – new mum at 47, ‘millionaire inventor’ and bitter divorce

When Melissa George burst onto screens as teenage runaway Angel Parrish, she was the girl every Home and Away fan wanted to be.

The actress joined the long-running Aussie soap in 1993 before her on-screen relationship with heartthrob Shane Parrish, played by Dieter Brummer, made her one of the biggest soap’s biggest stars. She went on to earn seven Logie Award nominations which gave her a platform to launch a Hollywood career.

In 1997, she took a punt moving to Los Angeles and the risk paid off – as Melissa, now 47, secured roles in hit Grey’s Anatomy, Friends, Hunted, The Good Wife and The Slap, to name a few. But away from the cameras, while the star has experienced soaring highs, she has also suffered some devastating lows.

Millionaire inventor

Back in 2010, Melissa and her business partner Kara Harshbarger dreamed up a plastic device called Hemming My Way, to stop their long pants dragging on the streets of New York. Of the need for such a contraption, Kara explained at the time: “One day over coffee, Melissa shared her idea for an invention.

“She had just been to New York City and was annoyed by a problem familiar to all women: her long hem dragging up and down the Big Apple sidewalks. This was 2008: enough is enough! So we brainstormed, drank more coffee, brainstormed, got the jitters, and wondered if we were out of our minds – what did we know about inventing?”

The creation proved to be a success, selling on Amazon and QVC and raking in millions for Melissa in the process. She once told Live magazine: “I’m not just an actress, I’m a multi-million-pound inventor. A few years ago, I came up with something that enables women to alter hemlines… That product has turned over $15 million in the past 10 months.”

“I now have three patents. The other two I can’t talk about because they’re top secret. My next plan is to open retail stores where you can walk in and have them fix the problem in your life.

“A new button on your shirt to getting your ears syringed – you name it. If you’ve broken up with your girlfriend, there’ll be somebody there to help you through it… My shops will fix your trousers and mend your heart at the same time.”

Savage swipe at Home and Away

The soap made Hollywood stars out of the likes of Heath Ledger and Margot Robbie, but Melissa took serious issue when Australia’s The Morning Show referred to her as a ‘Home and Away actress’. She furiously hit back: “My next call will be to Home and Away to ask them to pay me because nobody does more promotion for that f***ing show than me.”

And she later slagged off the show and her native country, insisting she had better things to do than worry about what people were saying back home. “I don’t need credibility from my country anymore; I just need them all to be quiet.

“If they have nothing intelligent to say, please don’t speak to me anymore,” Melissa told Melbourne’s Herald Sun. “I’d rather be having a croissant and a little espresso in Paris or walking my French bulldog in New York City.”

She added: ‘I’ve never spoken out about it because I have to be the loyal good Aussie, who goes away and comes home.’ But I’m a really hardworking woman and people have to respect me for what I’ve done.”

However, Melissa changed her tune in 2018 when she admitted she would possibly be open to a Summer Bay return. “They have offered, but I don’t know,” she told Australia’s Daily Telegraph. “[Being associated with the show] is a hard thing to shake, and at one point I tried to shake it, but there is no point.”

Dieter Brummer feud

On-screen their chemistry sizzled but behind the scenes, Dieter and Melissa clashed so much that he asked producers to kill off his character to escape the friction. He told Woman’s Day: “We may have been love interests on the show but the chemistry was far from real!

“Mel was incredibly ambitious right from the outset. I think she wanted to be the next Kylie Minogue. She was a big fan and she aspired to be a big star just like Kylie. I don’t think she had much time for the cast of Home and Away.”

And he branded her comments about the show ‘unnecessary and a bit ridiculous’, adding: “But then that’s Mel.” Melissa later told Home and Award special, Endless Summer: “There was a lot of pressure on us. We had to look like the perfect darling couple in public.”

And their co-star Ray Meagher, who plays Alf Stewart, added: “I’m not sure that they got on personally 100 per cent, 100 per cent of the time”. In mid-2021, Dieter was tragically found dead at his home aged just 45 after taking his own life.

His heartbroken friends spoke out to say that he “wasn’t going to be on this earth for long” as he had become increasingly withdrawn as his acting career came to an end. A crew member who worked with Dieter on 2010’s Underbelly: The Golden Mile, in which he starred as a corrupt police detective, said they got a “strong impression he had demons” when they first met on the set.