Jason Donovan has revealed Australia's favourite love affair all started in the bare room of a budget hotel.

The former Neighbours heart-throb says he and Kylie Minogue first made love in a Travelodge in Sydney.

Despite flying high as soap stars, their first night of passion cost them less than $50. Talking about the place where the earth moved for them, he says: ‘It was practical and had a bed and a telly.'

Jason, now 40 and living in London, chose his words carefully for UK program The Dark Side of Fame with Piers Morgan. But Kylie will always have a place in his heart.

'At that time, they were besotted with each other,' a friend from Jason's Neighbours days says. ‘They just couldn't drag their eyes away from each other - it was incredibly sweet to watch. Jason has said on that fateful night, all they needed was privacy, and each other.

'A fancy candlelit room and champagne would have made no difference at all.

‘The Travelodge was quite enough. At that time, it was the most romantic place on earth for both of them,' the friends says. ‘He has always been a gentlemen about the whole thing - even though he's been asked for steamy details, he'll never give them. But he has joked while the bed got plenty of use, the telly wasn't switched on once!'

It was the late '80s and Jason played hunky Scott Robinson, and Kylie, the perky, mechanic Charlene on Neighbours. They fell in love on set, and their affair lasted three years.

In 1989 they moved to London where Kylie, now 40, fell for Michael Hutchence. She ended it with Jason by phone. It took him ages to recover from that fateful conversation. ‘I could sense something was wrong, and she said it was over,' Jason says.

‘In reality, that was probably the best way to do it because I couldn't accept it at the start.'

Jason's now happily married to Angela Malloch and they have an eight-year-old daughter Jemma, and son Zac, aged seven.

But Jason and Angela had a rocky start - she challenged him to give up his cocaine habit for her.

These days, he looks back on being dumped and jokes: ‘I don't see it as humiliating. If you're going to lose someone, you might as well lose them to Michael Hutchence.'

But it seems time will never dim the glowing memory of that first night in the Sydney Travelodge.