Olivia Newton-John has revealed that recording latest album Grace and Gratitude helped her to deal with grief for her late partner.

The singer was devastated when Patrick McDermott disappeared while on a fishing trip off the coast of California in 2005.

"It helped me greatly because I found that when I write music -- when you write lyrics, like keeping a diary, writing poetry or a song - you take yourself out of your emotional body into more of an analytical body and it takes your mind out of grief," Newton-John told Reuters.

"It kind of takes you into the healing and when I was recording the songs, it was a great cathartic kind of thing, because it was where I needed to be."