Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta‘s on-screen chemistry in Grease was a big hit, giving rise to dating rumors. Despite more than four decades of film’s release, several of their fans still continue to wonder if the two actors were a thing at the time. 

Speaking on the Mamma Mia No Filter podcast in 2018, Olivia revealed why she couldn’t date John Travolta during filming.

Olivia was 28 years old and John was 23 years old when they filmed Grease. 

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“We were both with other people when we were filming and I think, respectfully, it just didn’t happen,” she explained.

“I think it was good, because I think it kept the tension there and the chemistry. It might have been a real disaster had we decided to date or we had a falling out or something,” she said at the time. “So I think it was just as well that it didn’t happen. But we’re still great friends.”

John Travolta had also spoken out about his real-life chemistry with Olivia Newton-John.

In 2019, when the pair were filming a Q&A session, John was asked if there was sexual tension on set, to which he replied, “yes.”

“I think you saw that in ‘You’re the One That I Want,’” Travolta said, referring to the duet Sandy and Danny performed at the end of Grease: “There’s almost resolve [of] that tension right there.”

However, another cast member from the movie revealed that John Travolta had a huge crush on Olivia Newton-John.

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“Oh yeah, [he did like her],” Didi Conn, better known as the character Frenchy in Grease, told the Daily Mail in 2018.

“What was so much fun was that most of us were older than the characters we were playing so we just stayed in character all day long. So there was an ongoing improvisation happening so the flirting… was fine.”