Melissa George now - millionaire inventor, Dieter Brummer feud and bitter divorce

Melissa George was the girl every Home and Away fan wanted to be when she joined the show as teenage runaway Angel Parrish in 1993.

Her on-screen relationship with heartthrob Shane Parrish, played by Dieter Brummer, made her one of the Australian soap's biggest stars, earning her seven Logie Award nominations and giving her a platform to launch a Hollywood career.

She took a punt moving to Los Angeles in 1997, and the risk paid off with Melissa, now 44, landing roles in Grey's Anatomy, Friends, Hunted, The Good Wife and The Slap.

But the intervening years have been littered with soaring highs and deep lows - from the invention that made her millions to her feud with Dieter Brummer and the divorce that left her broke...

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She turned down Simon Cowell

Melissa was just 17 when music mogul Simon Cowell set his beady eye on turning her into the next Kylie Minogue.

It was during a visit to London that she was invited to his record company office, where she said she was offered a deal without having to sing a note - but she turned it down.

She recalled: "I suppose they thought I looked the part. Years later I saw Simon Cowell on American Idol and realised it was the same guy who offered me the deal.

"I could never have been the next Kylie – my singing voice is too deep and husky. I can manage an impersonationof Brigitte Bardot and that's about it."

She became a 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".

Divorce that left her broke

Melissa was married to Chilean furniture designer and film director Claudio Dabed from 2000 to 2011 then had two sons Raphael, seven, and Solal, five, with French entrepreneur Jean David Blanc.

They ended their five-year marriage in 2016, and she said the divorce and bitter custody battle left her penniless and forced to sell her belongings.

Last year she told Stella magazine: "I was left with nothing... So I said, 'OK – what do you have?' I’ve got beautiful jewellery and designer clothes. And I just sold absolutely everything.

"I wouldn’t take work because I didn’t want to leave my babies. I mean, once you’ve lost it all, you really know what you need. Trust me."

Were you surprised to hear that Melissa and Dieter didn't get on in real life? Share your thoughts in the comments section below...