Alex O’Loughlin’s Life and Career: Australian-born Hawaii Five-0 star walked away from his career after a spate of injuries left him in agony and addicted to painkillers
Alex O’Loughlin seemed to have it all, including a starring role in one of the most popular and long-running US TV shows of last decade.
But the Aussie actor has been plagued by injuries and sought treatment for drug addiction early in his time on Hawaii Five-0.
The show, which also starred Scott Caan, was cancelled in 2020 after a 10-season run when O’Loughlin refused to sign on for an 11th series.
Now 48, he lives a quiet life in his adopted home of Hawaii with his wife of 10 years.
READ MORE: Single phone call changed Law and Order: SVU star Kelli Giddish’s life
Aussie roots
O’Loughlin was born in Canberra on August 24, 1976.
After his parents split, he reportedly lived between his mother’s home in Canberra and his father’s in Sydney.
O’Loughlin told The Canberra Times in 2005 he struggled at school, eventually dropping out before he was 15, and discovering later he had been suffering from undiagnosed attention deficit disorder.
In 1999, he auditioned for Sydney’s National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), where he completed a three-year Bachelor of Dramatic Art program.
READ MORE: Girls Aloud singer Cheryl’s life has been rocked by tragedies
He featured in a 2001 documentary about NIDA and in photos and playbills. He also starred in a NIDA play.
He graduated at the end of 2002, and the following year he appeared in one episode of the Aussie TV police drama White Collar Blue, followed by roles in Aussie film Oyster Farmer and TV movie BlackJack: Sweet Science.
A starring role in the Aussie TV mini series Mary Bryant saw him nominated for both an Australian Film Institute Awards Best Actor Award and a 2006 Logie award for Most Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series.
At the time, O’Loughlin was in a relationship with Australian actress/singer Holly Valance, whom he dated from 2005 to 2009.
The move to Hollywood
O’Loughlin told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2016 that he decided to chase fame by trying his luck in the US.
“Whether or not I would have admitted it at the time, what I wanted to experience was fame,” he said.
“I wanted to make some money, but I wanted to really just be in the running at the higher level. I wanted to be on billboards and I wanted people to go, ‘Oh, that’s that guy.'”
Australian stars of the ’90s: Then and now
After winning a couple of roles in the US, including a small part in the opening scenes of hit film The Holiday, he appeared in seven episodes of US police series The Shield.
This led to a starring role as an immortal vampire/private investigator in the TV series Moonlight, which ran for two seasons in 2007-08.
He next appeared in one episode of Criminal Minds and the Kate Beckinsale film Whiteout, before starring opposite Jennifer Lopez in rom-com The Back-up Plan.
Filming began in LA in May 2009. The movie was released in April the following year and made it to number one in the box office in its first week.
Hawaii Five-0
A starring role in a short-lived TV series followed before he was cast as Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett in the Hawaii 5-0 reboot.
The show, which premiered in September 2010 and was named Favourite New TV Drama at the People’s Choice Awards, made O’Loughlin a star.
But he told The Sydney Morning Herald he soon realised he hated being a celebrity.
“The minute I got a taste of it, I was like, ‘Oh, this has nothing to do with anything.’ I think for me, it was very important to go to the heart of all that stuff and see it from close up to realise that that wasn’t what I wanted.”
The show’s stunts also soon left O’Loughlin battling numerous injuries.
He spoke about the gruelling nature of shooting the series in a 2013 interview with Hawaii News.
“It was like explosions and fistfights on top of containers and you know, gunshots and all the rest of it from the onset,” he said.
Off-screen struggle
In March 2013, media outlets reported he was seeking treatment for drug addiction.
O’Loughlin’s publicist released a statement saying, “Alex is taking a short break from Hawaii Five-0 to receive supervised treatment for prescription pain medication due to a recent shoulder injury.”
CBS, the station behind the show, responded with its own statement saying, “We respect and support Alex’s decision. Everyone at CBS Television Studios and Hawaii Five-O wishes him well and we look forward to his return.”
In the 2016 Herald article, O’Loughlin rattled off a long list of injuries sustained on the show, including herniated discs in his neck, nerve damage, torn shoulder muscles, torn bicep tendons and more.
“When I show all the medical records to the doctor each year for my physical… this season… she was just like, ‘Are you f—ing kidding me?'”
“It’s taken a toll that I don’t think is worth the money and I wish I had made different decisions from the beginning.”
He told Entertainment Weekly in 2018 that he almost quit the show after a spinal injury.
“The spinal injury I had, like even two years ago, I could still barely move,” he said.
21 years ago they were ‘sworn enemies’
“It was just impossible. I was like, ‘There’s no way I can keep working like this. I can’t force that at all.’
“I got in a stem cell trial, and I’ve got all these stem cells in my back, and I built a rehab gym in my garage, and I’ve been doing lots of workouts the last couple years, and I feel physically a lot better.”
O’Loughlin eventually filmed 10 seasons before announcing his desire to leave due to ongoing injuries. Producers considered replacing him, before cancelling the show.
Since then, he has continued to live in Hawaii with his wife, Malia Jones, a surfer and swimwear designer whom he married in 2014.
The two share one child, a son who was born in 2012. He is also a dad to a son born in 1997 to a former girlfriend and is stepfather to Jones’s son from a previous relationship.
O’Loughlin told The Sydney Morning Herald he could not imagine leaving Hawaii, where he built his own home, by hand, with the help of two Sydney friends.
“I’m blessed into these islands. I’ve got a [Hawaiian] name, my children have Hawaiian names, I’m married to a Hawaiian girl,” he said.
“[My home] holds incredible significance to me. I don’t ever want to leave it.
“I don’t know if I want to keep doing this. Yeah, maybe [I would give up acting]. I don’t know. I’m just being honest.”
O’Loughlin, now 48, has a reported net worth of about $38 million, mostly derived from his Hawaii Five-0 pay checks – and was thought to be earning about AUD$300,000 an episode at its peak, or about $7 million a year.
He and his wife maintain a very low profile. O’Loughlin last appeared in a post on his wife’s Instagram account in 2015.
His official Facebook page is rarely updated, but he occasionally shows up on Instagram in tagged images to his wife’s account, where he is almost unrecognisable in a cap, beard and greying hair.
There was speculation early this year he was joining the cast of NCIS Sydney.
In recent times, scammers posing as the actor preyed on a number of vulnerable female fans, some of whom lost tens of thousands of dollars in catfishing schemes.