Natalie Imbruglia: I Got the Life I Dreamed Of... Then I Had to Start Over!

What happens when the life you dreamed of turns out completely differently than you expected? In this episode of Begin Again, Natalie Imbruglia joins Davina for an honest and deeply personal conversation about fame, failure, motherhood, ADHD, perimenopause and finding fulfilment on your own terms. Natalie reflects on finding fame young, running out of money when that fame faded, and then experiencing extraordinary global success with Torn. She opens up about the pressure that followed, becoming scared to leave the house, being dropped by record labels, and eventually walking away from music because she thought she was no longer meant to sing. She also speaks candidly about spending years trying to create the relationship and family life she thought she was supposed to have, her journey to becoming a mother, and why she now feels nothing is missing. Natalie also shares how ADHD, neurodivergence and perimenopause have helped her understand herself in a completely new way. This is a conversation about success, identity, reinvention and letting go of the life you thought you should have in order to build one that actually feels right. 🌟 Like, comment and subscribe for more honest conversations about purpose, resilience, love, loss and beginning again. Follow us here: 📸 www.instagram.com/beginagain 🎥 https://www.tiktok.com/@beginagainpod ✨ Sign up for the Begin Again newsletter for behind-the-scenes access, recommendations and much more: https://linkly.link/2g2xm We'd love you to share your Get Busy Living stories with us at https://getbusyliving.beginagainshow.com/ (00:00) Intro (01:18) Why “Algorithm” Marks a New Chapter (05:29) How Performing Became the Dream (08:22) Intuition, Spirituality & Manifestation (11:52) Stories From YOU! (Ad) (13:20) Davina Tries Monzo! (Ad) (14:30) How “Neighbours” Changed Everything (23:05) What Happened After “Neighbours” (27:17) How an ADHD Diagnosis Changed Everything (30:29) Moving to the UK and Running Out of Money (33:05) Breaking Into the Music Industry (38:44) The Story Behind “Torn” (41:04) The Pressure of the Second Album (43:36) Why She Made “Male” (45:26) Getting Dropped and Finding Purpose (48:22) Marriage, Love & Being Single (49:55) The IVF Journey to Motherhood (58:07) The Reality of Perimenopause (01:05:10) A Surprise Gift Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 1:01Speaker 02

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• 1:28Speaker 06

  Let's talk about Tom. It was a blessing and a problem.

• 1:33Speaker 07

  I remember thinking, you're gonna win every award this year and then nothing, forever. Pretty close to what's happening.

• 1:42Speaker 06

  Today, I'm joined by global star Natalie Imbruglia, whose career has inspired a generation.

• 1:47Speaker 07

  And went in and met this agent by myself.

• 1:50Speaker 06

  You were, what, 16?

• 1:51Speaker 07

  15 at the time, yeah.

• 1:53Speaker 06

  I mean, you were very vulnerable, alone, on set. What was it like as a young girl? Natalie speaks really honestly about the reality of getting everything you've ever dreamed of.

• 2:04Speaker 07

  So I was like, well, obviously, I'm gonna be a star. It's not till a lot later I was able to be honest with myself about maybe how out of my depth I was. Oh, my God, this is so funny. I'm being so open.

• 2:14Speaker 06

  She also talks about how often we're so focused on becoming someone else that we forget who we already are.

• 2:20Speaker 07

  When I got dropped by a record label, I quit music because I thought the universe didn't want me to sing.

• 2:25Speaker 06

  It is a conversation about identity, reinvention.

• 2:28Speaker 07

  I just have always been very good at, when I have to prove myself, I'll show them. When I was singing, I could just close my eyes. And so just coming back, recognizing the gift of what you're meant to be doing.

• 2:39Speaker 06

  And why you are always, and I mean always, allowed to begin again.

• 2:47Speaker 06

  Natalie Imbruglia, everybody.

• 2:48Speaker 07

  Woo!

• 2:49Speaker 06

  Thank you so much. So first of all, I want to quickly talk about your album because it's dropping like any minute. And we've had a couple of tracks released already. Amazing. But can you just talk me through, because I do feel like each one of your albums has got a kind of theme to it. What was this one about?

• 3:16Speaker 07

  The album's called Algorithm. That specific song is about my addiction to doom scrolling on my phone late at night, which I'm still doing. So the song didn't fix me, but I wanted to open the conversation about mental health. So a lot of the subjects on there are to do with me coming into perimenopause. And for a year, I was like, I'm not myself. I don't feel like myself. And so all my neurodivergence came out to play. And so it's me going into sessions with the guys I'm working with, happened to all be men this time, and just saying, I am crazy. I don't even know. I think I'm gonna have to quit my job. And ending up laughing and them trying to make me feel better.

• 4:01Speaker 07

  And so because I didn't want to bring myself down, I had to make it funny. So the songs are very upbeat, and I was also playing lots of festivals. So there's lots of, everything's written to play to an audience that's not your audience, so I don't have to pull anything out of the set.

• 4:17Speaker 06

  And Algorithm's been on Spotify for a bit, but with the blacked-out, like, tracks that you can't listen to. But actually, the track Algorithm has been out for a while. So if you're watching this and the album's not dropped yet, you can go and grab a couple of tracks from the album already, can't you?

• 4:34Speaker 07

  That's right. Just drive Algorithm and Upside Down. But that's about my doom scrolling. So it sounds like it's about a sexy guy. And it's my phone, and it's how it seduces you in. I think it says Beast of My Dreams turning me on, and it's the phone. And so I would, it's crazy because I'm an intelligent person, but I will see something that's a little bit violent or a little bit, and I'll go, oh, and something makes me press it. And so I think it's a really important conversation, like, are you blindly following an algorithm? Have you learned how to change the settings on your phone? How about the algorithm in yourself? Are you just taking in your environment? Are you, you know, taking steps in your life to make sure the people that you're around

• 5:19Speaker 07

  or the environments you're in, or the self-care? Are you in charge of it, or is it you just blindly being led by the algorithm, your internal algorithm? So I just thought it was topical.

• 5:31Speaker 06

  So mine was lots of news outlets, and they all post all the really frightening things. So I unfollowed...

• 5:39Speaker 07

  Lots of violence and war and...

• 5:41Speaker 06

  I unfollowed all news outlets. And they were posting acts of violence, fights, murders, and things like that, all gone.

• 5:51Speaker 07

  So if you're not following them, can they still flash up? And then you say, not interested, because that's another thing you could do. And I wasn't doing that. I would just not want to press a button, and I should have been actively saying, not interested, not interested, not interested.

• 6:03Speaker 06

  And then I started actively looking for puppies, babies, shaggy mullet haircuts.

• 6:13Speaker 07

  I love a shaggy.

• 6:14Speaker 06

  That's great. But I changed my algorithm, and now my For You page, which used to be full of violence, is now full of puppies, haircuts, and babies.

• 6:24Speaker 07

  You've totally inspired me. Because if I go to a dinner party, I'll just quickly have to put in puppies to try and disguise the ugliness of my, because I don't want anyone to see my phone.

• 6:36Speaker 06

  And it will change your outlook.

• 6:40Speaker 07

  Wow. Thank you for sharing that with me because I'm still a work in progress and I'm still doom scrolling at night. So like, the phone's still in my bed and not outside the room. And I still haven't made the effort to do that. I only do it for certain times that I'm going out. So I'm gonna do an experiment and see.

• 6:59Speaker 06

  I mean, I'd like to go back to your beginnings and growing up with your mom and dad. And I love it when you say that your mom had a different love language to you. It's not that she didn't love you. You know she loved you. But she was kind of worried about you, that were you gonna be safe? She had to look out for you. And you were quite free, it felt like, as a kid. What was she like? Because she got you dancing early, right?

• 7:27Speaker 07

  Yeah, so apparently, my sister was doing Scottish dancing, and I was three, and I used to do it up the back. So they just let me start. So I actually started at three. By five, I was doing jazz and tap. Ballet came later because they don't want you to start ballet too young. But I was obsessive about it. So that was fine. But then I wanted to do character dancing as well. And I mean, financially, it was like, my mom was like, err. And then I wanted to do singing lessons, and my mom said, no, you dance. You're just copying off Lee Belcher down the street, the girl who lived down the road.

• 8:04Speaker 06

  What does that mean? What was Lee Belcher doing?

• 8:07Speaker 07

  Because she was allowed to do everything. So mom was like, you're just trying to do what she does. And I'm like, no, no, no, I really love singing. And so I had to constantly prove to my parents. And then even when I was at a performing of arts school, like, after-school curriculum, so like Johnny Young Talent School, or the other one was Simon Gallagher's Young Aussies in Queensland. So we'd like perform in shopping centers. There's some really interesting footage of me singing Christmas carols. Because we had malls before you had malls, before you had Westfield. I grew up with those.

• 8:37Speaker 06

  Westfield's Australian, isn't it?

• 8:39Speaker 07

  Singing in Westfield shopping centers with a Santa skirt, Christmas carols. Actually, there is one talent contest where I'm coming down the escalator. Somebody was like, I think you should start at the top of the, and I'm singing True Blue. And my mom thought I was singing, hey, true blue, which is like a Pride Australia song. But I was saying, I've had all the guys. And I was like 14, and she'd made me a really tight blue dress. And I came down the escalator. Yeah, horrified.

• 9:12Speaker 07

  My poor mum.

• 9:13Speaker 06

  So you you've always been a performer in your soul.

• 9:17Speaker 07

  I felt like I I kind of was born feeling like I'd been here before and knowing what I wanted to do. And I thought that was normal. I thought everybody had a sense of destiny. I remember my older sister one day said, you don't know how lucky you are. I said, what do you mean? And she said, some people don't know. It had never occurred to me how much of a gift it was that it was very, my path was very clear. So that that really hit me when she said that because I couldn't imagine not knowing. I mean, that came later.

• 9:51Speaker 06

  But it's interesting because we're going to touch on this a little bit later, but we were talking about instinct and the knowing.

• 9:58Speaker 07

  Hmm.

• 9:58Speaker 06

  And how it gets more heightened with age. You you your conscience, the voice inside you telling you what to do becomes louder and clearer, but it feels like you've always had that.

• 10:14Speaker 07

  Yeah, I always was very intuitive and fascinated with reincarnation and the, you know, the other realms and things like that. But it was kind of now we can talk about it more openly, whereas that was my freaky side that I had to keep quiet and only talk to with certain people. And now it's really nice that it's something we can speak more openly about. But I was always a bit intuitive. But peri-menopause has made it really dialed up.

• 10:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? I mean, this is a, we're going to talk about that a bit later, but I I love the fact that you and I, I feel like I did a bit too, and Michael, my husband, also did it. We manifested our futures before it was a thing. You know, I just wanted to show off, perform, do anything. So see me, I'm here, please see me.

• 11:12Speaker 07

  Did you write a list?

• 11:14Speaker 06

  Well, no, but you did. I was just going to ask you about that because your list was so precise and you literally made it all happen. Tell, tell us what you put on your list. How old were you when you wrote the list for for a start?

• 11:26Speaker 07

  I think fourteen, fifteen, around that age. And I've often thought, did I have certainty? Or is it, is there no difference between this is my destiny? And I don't know whether you're manifesting or is there's not really any difference, is there? Because I was just like, I can write a list and it will happen. So I didn't know, there was no, nothing had happened where I'd been disappointed. So everything's ahead of you. And I had the school of hard knocks, you know, I hadn't really had those things that make you go, oh, maybe I can't have what I want. So I was like, well, obviously I'm going to be a star. Obvs. I'm going to be on East Street, Neighbours or Home and Away.

• 12:08Speaker 07

  Then I'm going to be a movie star, then I'm going to be a pop star, which order, I don't know, I don't really care. I'll just write them down. Wrote it down, but it wasn't even weird for me to do that. Whereas the thought of doing that now or things I want to do in the future, I'd find that that much harder now.

• 12:26Speaker 06

  Would you?

• 12:26Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 12:27Speaker 06

  After everything that you said you were going to do and you've done, but you'd still, you would find it hard now?

• 12:34Speaker 07

  I think so, yeah.

• 12:35Speaker 06

  I mean, I might have to, I might have to go back again in a minute, but what would you write on your list now?

• 12:39Speaker 07

  Oh, playing stadiums, the house in Byron Bay, aim big, fall madly in love later.

• 12:48Speaker 06

  I'm gonna help you with that.

• 12:49Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 12:51Speaker 06

  I'm really good.

• 12:52Speaker 07

  You're good? I'm not ready yet, though.

• 12:54Speaker 06

  No, no.

• 12:55Speaker 07

  Okay, see the panic?

• 12:56Speaker 06

  You let me know.

• 12:57Speaker 07

  When I'm ready.

• 12:58Speaker 06

  When you're ready.

• 12:59Speaker 07

  Great, okay. You've got a good track record. Okay, fantastic. Yeah, definitely. There's a beach. There's water. Um.

• 13:06Speaker 06

  So you have got a list?

• 13:08Speaker 07

  I've got a bit of a list. Yeah. It's mainly about my son, making sure that he's got everything that he needs as well. The ambition, the stadiums are all about him, really. Not so much about me anymore.

• 13:20Speaker 06

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• 14:04Speaker 06

  you're going to get there. And what you need to do is just learn the basics and then go live in France. Because there's nothing like immersing yourself. It will all just flow out of you. I used to visit my grandparents and my mum and my sister in Paris every school holiday. And at twelve, I still didn't speak French, but I understood everything. Then I went on holiday and my cousin had a very hot friend. And within two weeks, I was speaking fluent French. Needs must. Monzo puts your money to work in the background. Sorted, saved, sent where it needs to go. So you have got more time and headspace for the things that you actually want to do. What have you always wanted to try? Or have you already gone and done it? Head to the link in the description and tell me your story.

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• 16:01Speaker 00

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• 16:30Speaker 01

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid and risked three hundred fifty thousand Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorised by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 17:00Speaker 03

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• 17:14Speaker 06

  So then this fourteen, fifteen year old girl, she writes down this list of things that she'd like to do. It was number one, acting.

• 17:23Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 17:24Speaker 06

  So how did, how did Neighbours happen? Because you were so young when that happened.

• 17:29Speaker 07

  So my mum wouldn't let me have an agent. And I was now, I got a bursary to go to a school in Sydney, which was a performing of art school. And it was like proper, there's ballerinas there and it was so you studied, but it was like fame. So two hours there, two hours.

• 17:42Speaker 06

  It was a long way, right?

• 17:43Speaker 07

  Two hours on the train. And obviously, you're tired, you're goofing off school. And, and so I started meeting professional actors at this school. And my friend Mel was like, I'll introduce you to my agent. And I was like, a Sydney agent? Because I was from the suburbs. And mum wouldn't take me, so I got on a train. And I was like, I'll do it myself then. And so I went for the meeting and went in and met this agent by myself.

• 18:10Speaker 06

  And you were, what, sixteen?

• 18:11Speaker 07

  Yeah, I would have been fif- fifteen at the time. Yeah. And so I started, but I became an extra in the background of the shows. So we'd be at home and I was getting paid these good cheques. And my parents' kind of ears pricked up when it was like, oh, she's actually getting paid good money. And I was like, there I am. And we would pause and I'd be in the cafe in the back. And so that's where it started. And I did that for six months. And then I was like, school's getting in the way of my auditions. I need to leave. So I left school, got a Coca-Cola commercial, a Twisties ad.

• 18:44Speaker 06

  Wow.

• 18:44Speaker 07

  And then a guest appearance at the end of that year. So within six months, two commercials, guest appearance, like a two week guest appearance. And then they offered me the job.

• 18:55Speaker 06

  Wow.

• 18:56Speaker 07

  So it all happened within a six to eight month period.

• 19:01Speaker 06

  I mean.

• 19:02Speaker 07

  That list worked.

• 19:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, but also there's something very powerful about.

• 19:08Speaker 06

  Writing the list, something happening. I, and I'm sure, I'm pretty sure you didn't appreciate how mega that was.

• 19:14Speaker 07

  No.

• 19:15Speaker 06

  It was just expected.

• 19:17Speaker 07

  Or, or you knew it was gonna happen. I learnt about manifesting eons later. And, and I was like, ah, was that what I was doing then? So the certainty of I can decide, it's not that different. It's really not that different. It's just really putting it in writing. And yeah, we just, we did that more as a child. We've just got to get back in touch with that, that little, little kid that dreams big.

• 19:44Speaker 06

  So this was quite a long way away from home, right?

• 19:47Speaker 07

  Mm hmm.

• 19:48Speaker 06

  I mean, Neighbours was, was a long way away. It was on your own.

• 19:54Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 19:55Speaker 06

  Sixteen years old.

• 19:56Speaker 07

  Sixteen and a half, yeah.

• 19:57Speaker 06

  How, how were you feeling? Were you excited or, I mean, you were very vulnerable.

• 20:04Speaker 07

  I didn't feel vulnerable.

• 20:05Speaker 06

  You didn't?

• 20:06Speaker 07

  No.

• 20:06Speaker 06

  God, how amazing.

• 20:07Speaker 07

  I was like, oh, I can't wait to go out and go clubbing and no parents.

• 20:13Speaker 06

  But you were alone, you were filming, you um were on set. What was it like as a young girl?

• 20:23Speaker 07

  I mean, it was a dream. Actually, I remember, remember the Blakeney twins?

• 20:26Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 20:27Speaker 07

  I think, cause I had a really bad perm with like lemon squeezed into the bottom of it.

• 20:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, of course, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 20:36Speaker 07

  And the twins came up to me and were like, so what are you gonna do with your hair? And they very gently, sweetly were like trying to make me look cooler and encouraged me to get my hair cut shorter and darker. And I'm so grateful because the perm had to go. Um, so people were really loving and kind and sweet and um some not so nice, but that's nothing new. I think that was the harsh reality of being in an adult work environment as a child. I didn't know how to sign on and off work, so I didn't get paid for months because no one told me. You've got to sign in here and sign out there. So little things like that.

• 21:11Speaker 06

  God, that's so mad. They didn't have somebody specifically looking after you because you were young. No.

• 21:17Speaker 07

  I don't think it would happen now.

• 21:19Speaker 06

  No. Cause you were talking about wanting to go clubbing. You know, nobody asked for ID then.

• 21:24Speaker 07

  No.

• 21:25Speaker 06

  Ever?

• 21:26Speaker 07

  No, and there's no, it's not like you had a chaperone.

• 21:28Speaker 06

  No.

• 21:28Speaker 07

  But I loved that. See, I was in a hurry to grow up and in a hurry to experience everything before you were meant to. And I used to say to my sister, you've got to stop reading books and just get out there and kiss a boy. You know, so I was just that child. So what would be scary for someone else was exciting to me. And I think it's not till a, a lot later that I was able to be honest with myself about maybe how out of my depth I was.

• 22:00Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 22:01Speaker 07

  And that was, that was a hard one for me, I think. And that period, I think, as I got older, kept changing and reassessing. And when my niece turned uh seventeen, I, I, I mean, I, I saw myself in her and, and, and had that compassion for the situations I was in, what I'd survived, really. The danger I put myself in numerous times, it kind of hit me in a different way. But I mean, I was all up for that. I just was running towards the wrong things probably.

• 22:35Speaker 06

  I mean, you say running towards the wrong things. I think, I, I'm just so in awe of the girl that you are already. What, you're seventeen, eighteen years old. You are in um a huge global phenomenon of a TV show that's on daily. Um, you've got that all on your own virtue, like uh, uh, my mind's already blown and I've only got you to eighteen years old.

• 23:01Speaker 07

  But if you think about it, the, the gift from my parents was not being showbiz parents and saying no.

• 23:08Speaker 06

  That's what it was.

• 23:08Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah. I was like, I will. So the drive also came from you will not stop me. They were very strict and in, in wanting to protect me, I think my mum was like, you know, don't, don't have big expectations. You'll get disappointed in a protection way. And I was like, live that lid off. So it was this weird thing of like, she gave me my drive and she gave me my determination and because I had to do it myself because she wasn't gonna help me.

• 23:36Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 23:36Speaker 07

  So I was like, I will find a way. And I remember sadly divorcing them in my head because I asked to go on school camp and my mum, it was like, had a bit of an expression of stress over money. And I remember thinking, you kidding me? And I went up to my bed and I was like, I am not a financial burden. And I made all these choices. And so I've often thought.

• 24:01Speaker 06

  Tell me what those were just quickly, like you.

• 24:03Speaker 07

  Watch me not need you.

• 24:05Speaker 06

  Right.

• 24:06Speaker 07

  This is quite heavy and I'm on TV. I've just remembered.

• 24:09Speaker 06

  No, but I, I, I think it's actually quite helpful.

• 24:12Speaker 07

  Right.

• 24:13Speaker 06

  For, for, I, I was the same.

• 24:15Speaker 07

  And the thing is, we're so sensitive that when we make a decision at that age, it's so powerful.

• 24:22Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 24:24Speaker 07

  And I, it had never occurred to me that I divorced them in my, like, what that must have felt like for them because I start, I was like, I'm, I don't need you. Uh, you know, because the pain of being a financial burden to them or in some way being responsible for their unhappiness.

• 24:43Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 24:44Speaker 07

  And this comes back to neurodivergence as well and sensitivity. It pained me. And so it had never really occurred to me that what I might have put them through in not needing them. You know, like, I think they must have been a little bit frightened that if they said the wrong thing, it's like walking on eggshells, she might never come home. And so I think later on, when you get over the fact that it's all the victim and everything's about you, you, you, you start to look at your part in it and how hard that must have been for them. And as a parent myself, you know, so that's something I've thought about a lot, how there was no room for my, for my mum, like my mum to mother me either.

• 25:26Speaker 06

  But at the same time, I've heard already, as we've spoken, a lot of gratitude.

• 25:30Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 25:30Speaker 06

  For your parents.

• 25:31Speaker 07

  Mm hmm.

• 25:31Speaker 06

  You know, they made you who you are.

• 25:33Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 25:34Speaker 06

  And you're fucking ace.

• 25:36Speaker 07

  Thank you. So are you.

• 25:38Speaker 06

  I, I, I wonder if you look back, would you have changed anything?

• 25:41Speaker 07

  No.

• 25:42Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?

• 25:44Speaker 07

  Definitely.

• 25:44Speaker 06

  Well done, parents.

• 25:45Speaker 07

  Yeah, well done. It's fabulous.

• 25:48Speaker 06

  So what was really funny again was um, you know, I knew your story, but I didn't know dates and things like that. And I read and I was like, what, you left Neighbours when you were eighteen?

• 26:00Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 26:01Speaker 06

  And I was like, I thought you were in it forever. It's so funny. I guess because it was daily and you were in our lives every day, it, it just.

• 26:12Speaker 07

  Had a lot of partners too, so I think that felt like the relationships went on for a year. By the end, they had me busy.

• 26:21Speaker 06

  Beth had done everyone.

• 26:24Speaker 07

  Beth does Ramsay Street. Well, I mean, it was getting to the, I was like, really?

• 26:31Speaker 07

  This is a get, this is not my character.

• 26:33Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 26:34Speaker 07

  And they, they would just laugh at me. I'd be like, this is a get, this is off script. This is not, well, she would not do this.

• 26:40Speaker 06

  How frustrating is that when somebody makes your character do something that you think this isn't what?

• 26:46Speaker 07

  They were just laughing at me. I was trying to take it very seriously. I mean, I thought I was a thespian doing this, you know.

• 26:52Speaker 06

  But it is serious.

• 26:53Speaker 07

  She's got a phobia of blue and you've got her in a blue dress. This is me to the script writers. Yes, sweet. And they go, okay, thanks for sharing. I need to talk to the script writer.

• 27:05Speaker 06

  And then eighteen, you did basically uh the unthinkable. You leave this huge success and then you just up and move country. Yeah, you talk me through that.

• 27:16Speaker 07

  Well.

• 27:17Speaker 06

  I mean, eighteen's still so young.

• 27:19Speaker 07

  Yeah. Actually, I think I was, was I seventeen and a half when I.

• 27:23Speaker 06

  Wow.

• 27:24Speaker 07

  And I, so what we would do, you leave Neighbours, you'd go do Panto to cash in and be an out of work actor.

• 27:31Speaker 06

  Right.

• 27:32Speaker 07

  So that would get you through. So that was the plan. And what happens is us Aussies come over here and go, oh my God, there's a whole world out there. I'm, I'm coming back. And so, and then we never leave. So that's what happened. Via a trip through America, I ended up on a tour bus with Inexcess. That's an aside.

• 27:48Speaker 06

  Wait.

• 27:49Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 27:49Speaker 06

  No, wait. You can't just say that and then say that's an aside. Um, so this is mega, right? Because Inexcess at that time were just the biggest band in the universe.

• 28:04Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 28:05Speaker 06

  And we've obviously all just seen that amazing documentary with Kylie and, and been re-blown away by Michael.

• 28:14Speaker 07

  His, yeah.

• 28:15Speaker 06

  And his beauty. I, I mean, I don't mean.

• 28:17Speaker 07

  He was one in a million. I mean, there's.

• 28:19Speaker 06

  In his heart, he was a beautiful person.

• 28:22Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 28:22Speaker 06

  Talk, talk me through what that was like.

• 28:23Speaker 07

  Sexy rock god. Um, I had become friends with a singer called Denny Hines. Her mother, Marshall Hines, is a very famous singer. And she was engaged to the saxophone player in Inexcess. And she'd invited me to come stay to her hotel. So it's my first trip to the UK and I thought, well, I'll stop in the States and have a couple of nights with Denny and then go on to Canterbury. Like the, imagine the first time you've gone overseas. And she got bored and was like, I'm gonna go on the tour bus. I was like, you can't leave me. I've never left home. And she said, well, I'll ask the boys if you can come on tour. And I was actually thought I was quite cool. So that was just really not cool and embarrassing and like, don't ask them. Anyway, she said, oh, the boys said it's fine. And so next thing you know, I'm flying to Chicago.

• 29:09Speaker 07

  And I'm on a tour bus with Inexess. Yeah, yeah. And Helena Christensen walked in. I was like.

• 29:17Speaker 07

  I mean, yeah, wild.

• 29:20Speaker 06

  So how long did you do that for?

• 29:22Speaker 07

  I don't remember. It would have only been a couple of nights and then I would have had to go on to back to New York. And then on to to yeah. And I remember there was like bullet holes in the wall and someone was telling me about Al Capone. So this, you know, these things. And I remember one of the band members played me Joni Mitchell Girl at Her Volcano, sat me at a window with the snow falling. So those visceral memories of the first time you hear an artist like Ricky Lee Jones and it's just imprinted in my, you just can't redo those experiences. So that was, yeah. That was incredible.

• 30:00Speaker 06

  Um, earlier on, you you mentioned neurodivergence and I just um want to talk to you a little bit about that because now as an adult. Um, I think lots of people, rather than labelling themselves, are just acknowledging that they probably have a bit of this and a bit of that. And that's why I've always been this way. What, because I don't think you've been officially diagnosed, have you, as?

• 30:23Speaker 07

  With ADHD.

• 30:24Speaker 06

  Oh, with ADHD you have, but you think you probably are dyslexic.

• 30:28Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 30:29Speaker 06

  But.

• 30:29Speaker 07

  Mildly, yeah.

• 30:30Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean, uh, you know, it is.

• 30:32Speaker 07

  The words used to move around on the page.

• 30:34Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 30:35Speaker 07

  And I just could never, I'd read three pages and go back and again. And then I was like, I can't, how can I not remember what I'm reading? And thought I was stupid. Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 06

  I mean, these are terrible, these things that we go through when we're younger and everybody does just say, oh, well, you, you know, you're struggling a bit and da da. But then actually, when you do understand that there is probably a reason for that. And it's fine. And it actually also, I mean, dyslexia now is seen as it should always have been seen as a gift.

• 31:06Speaker 07

  Mm hmm.

• 31:06Speaker 06

  Um, of lateral thinking.

• 31:08Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 31:09Speaker 06

  And a different way of viewing the world. And how valuable that is. But, uh, you know, it's sad because when you're younger, it's a burden. But you you've been diagnosed with ADHD.

• 31:19Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 31:20Speaker 06

  But I'm still thinking about this girl in all of these crazy situations on your own. It's just like, it is mad when you think about it.

• 31:31Speaker 07

  Yeah. But I knew I had OCD.

• 31:33Speaker 06

  How did that manifest itself?

• 31:35Speaker 07

  Well, my sister was really messy and we shared a room and I had to put a piece of string down the middle and I was just very tidy. I was very organised and tidy. And I was like, I'm so glad I've got OCD for my mum. So that was something my mother had lists, you know, she had us all kind of without chores and everything was orderly and. But I was like, this is the best thing ever because I never had it out of control. I never had compulsive hand washing. It never, it was like just the right amount. So I used to love that I had OCD and I'd tell everyone. Other members of my family later in life had to get treatment for it. I remember my sister had to touch the stove to make sure it was off and she'd come back to watch TV and she'd have to go back or she'd drive to work.

• 32:17Speaker 07

  And think, I've left the iron plugged in because mum was like, don't leave the iron plugged in. We don't have house insurance. So that, that didn't help. But hers was getting out of control. So my niece and my sister had both had treatment for it. So then I became aware that it can tip, there's a tipping point. I had no idea that they're all linked.

• 32:39Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 32:40Speaker 07

  That, you know, it doesn't really matter which one, like by the end of it. So by the time I'd been diagnosed and I realised that there's little bits of all of them and that's an ADHD trait, not just an OCD. I was like, oh, doesn't matter then. Like you can, you can get hung up on the labels or you can just say, you know, sprinkling of all of them. It doesn't really, what what matters is um, the tools you have to cope with, whatever they are. Like, does it really matter? Do, do you really need to know specifically? It doesn't actually change anything.

• 33:12Speaker 06

  So you came over to the UK, you did panto, but then you were like, I love the UK.

• 33:16Speaker 07

  I'm, I'm, I have to.

• 33:17Speaker 06

  I'm coming back.

• 33:18Speaker 07

  To come back. And then it was a case of, I actually was trying to be an actress. So I had made some demos straight after Neighbours, but the the people that in Australia were trying to put me in like a girl group and I was doing demos of Sean Colvin.

• 33:34Speaker 06

  Right, okay. Not girl group.

• 33:37Speaker 07

  I was too young for the kind of music I want to sing. I mean, it's just ridiculous thinking about it. I was like, they just don't take me seriously. And it's this child trying to sing a serious country artist. I don't know if anyone knows who Sean Colvin is.

• 33:50Speaker 06

  I do. I love.

• 33:51Speaker 07

  Diamond in the rough. That was my.

• 33:54Speaker 06

  That was wow, brilliant.

• 33:56Speaker 07

  It just didn't fit. And so I just.

• 33:58Speaker 06

  It did for you.

• 34:00Speaker 07

  For me, it did.

• 34:01Speaker 06

  Not, but not their impression of what you should be doing, but you knew what you wanted to do.

• 34:07Speaker 07

  Well, I actually was like, I'm just gonna have to wait till I'm a bit older. I'll put it on the back burner and I'll just stop being actress. Isn't that funny?

• 34:14Speaker 06

  It's amazing.

• 34:15Speaker 07

  So I then went to England and that's when I couldn't get a visa and to work as an actress and they were really cracking down on the Neighbours stars, taking English actors' roles. And that was a hard time because I, I ran out of money. So I was for a few years, very famous from Neighbours and was doing appearances and going, appearing in clubs and signing autographs. And just getting wads of cash in envelopes and living like that. And that was the first time in my life where everything didn't fall in my lap. And so I just partied because I didn't know what to do. It's like, and then, but then the money ran out. And it was my dad once rang and said, can I just ask, when are you gonna get a job? And I was so proud and I

• 35:01Speaker 07

  screamed at him and kicked off, but I was so embarrassed that he said that to me, that I changed things then.

• 35:08Speaker 06

  So you'd had a kind of um, a pretty luxurious life for a young girl since you'd been in Neighbours, you'd had a steady cash flow, you'd been an extra before that. You'd had an income coming in.

• 35:22Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 35:23Speaker 06

  So was it, was it quite a good slap in the face? Sort of suddenly not having money and it was like, oh, okay.

• 35:31Speaker 07

  Having to get the bus.

• 35:32Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 07

  Yeah, it was good.

• 35:35Speaker 06

  It's interesting, isn't it?

• 35:36Speaker 07

  Because if for a famous person, then everyone might recognise you and they'd be like, are you Rebecca Lonnell Blue from that? And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Or they'd be like, I know you, but they didn't quite know where from. And so the fame dwindles and the kind of recognition dwindles and the the friends that were there fall away and there you have the subject matter for the first album.

• 35:58Speaker 06

  And when did you start writing that?

• 36:00Speaker 07

  I was, I'd run out of money and I was living in a basement of someone's house in Chelsea, which was weird because I had no money. I'm in Chelsea in this big mansion, but I'm just in the basement and um, a lot of conversations with God about if I ever get lucky again, if I ever.

• 36:17Speaker 06

  Was it like a higher power or were you religious?

• 36:22Speaker 07

  I was brought up religious and I was still on the journey of what God was for me. I ended up getting very heavily into eastern philosophy and meditation and that helped me kind of understand my Catholic upbringing, strangely. I had met this meditation master.

• 36:39Speaker 06

  How lovely.

• 36:39Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 36:40Speaker 06

  How old were you then?

• 36:41Speaker 07

  That grounded me. That was, um, I guess I was around twenty one, twenty two when Torn came out. So it was before that. Just before that.

• 36:49Speaker 06

  So you got into meditation at twenty?

• 36:51Speaker 07

  Oh, I'd already had my party years and then, yeah, dove into meditation and because I was like, I need this is gonna ground me and if ever I have that success again, like I just wanna, don't let the wrong people in. It was because I'd been through so much and I'd.

• 37:07Speaker 06

  This is incredible.

• 37:09Speaker 07

  It's a lot of lives for a little person.

• 37:11Speaker 06

  I mean, I think this is, this is why I was so looking forward to talking to you on on this podcast in particular because often people spend decades in one thing and then change, but you're, we've, we've got to twenty and you've lived three lives already. It's incredible. No, but it's.

• 37:32Speaker 07

  I've got a spiritual name tattooed on my neck and I was like doing an hour and a half.

• 37:36Speaker 06

  Tell me, what's your?

• 37:36Speaker 07

  Shaya.

• 37:38Speaker 06

  Is that your spiritual name?

• 37:39Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 37:40Speaker 06

  Oh, I love that.

• 37:41Speaker 07

  I don't go by it, but at the time I wanted it as a practice to

• 37:45Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 37:46Speaker 07

  qualities I could grow into. Oh, my God, this is so funny. I'm being so open. Bring it out. What am I doing? I keep forgetting I'm.

• 37:53Speaker 06

  Can I say something? No, I'm in awe of you. Like, you're being open, but it's.

• 37:58Speaker 07

  Well.

• 37:58Speaker 06

  I I'm so, I'm so impressed by you and and talking to um, a higher power and.

• 38:09Speaker 07

  Wild, isn't it?

• 38:10Speaker 06

  Yeah, and having conversations.

• 38:12Speaker 07

  I don't know if I was having a like mental breakdown. It could have been all the partying and then just kind of all the friends disappearing and, I don't know, I made deals with God. I was like, if you, if this happens, I promise, I think I wrote letters to my cousins and all kinds of stuff. But it's cathartic. It was like.

• 38:32Speaker 06

  Cathartic.

• 38:34Speaker 07

  I've got a roof over my head. I remember thinking, some people don't. You know, when it's just reassessing. And when you've been spoiled and you've had things very easy and then it's all taken away, things get stripped back and it's such a blessing. That was the birth of the album that changed my life. So, you know, the visceral memories, if you think about what's happened to you in your life, I'm not thinking about the awards and all of that. I'm thinking about the, when it was like this is life or death or like, I've got to get this together. That's where the nuggets of wisdom come and you make choices and pacts with yourself or with your higher power, whatever you want to call it.

• 39:16Speaker 07

  Of, you know, what you're gonna do now, what you need to do. And so that's, that's inspiring to me. That's what I want to write about. That's what. I think about and remember more than accolades.

• 39:31Speaker 06

  So you've written some lyrics, you are struggling, everything is difficult. You're in a basement, you are writing lyrics to songs, but you wanted to act. But how did you get to meet somebody in the music industry who were like, okay, let's, did you make a demo?

• 39:52Speaker 07

  Oh, I know what happened. So I remember I couldn't get a visa to be an actress and I was like, oh, I'm gonna have to do that other thing that I do. So I had this idea that because I was on Neighbours and so many people had had a music career or tried. I mean, there was quite a few, I don't know.

• 40:08Speaker 06

  Had Kylie happened, though?

• 40:10Speaker 07

  Kylie was hugely successful.

• 40:11Speaker 06

  Kylie, Jason.

• 40:12Speaker 07

  But some people not so successful. And I just thought, if it doesn't work, I'm like the 11th person who's tried and failed and that's it. The stakes felt that high.

• 40:23Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 40:24Speaker 07

  I knew I could sing, I was a stage school kid, but there's no guarantees. So it felt very risky, but I, I, I ran out of money and my dad made that comment and I was like, I'm just gonna have to be the stage school kid again, because it just wasn't cool. Like, I got to teenage years, it was about boys and you don't, you don't, you're not a triple threat. So that wasn't cool in my head. It is actually really cool.

• 40:47Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 40:48Speaker 07

  Um, so I went back to it kind of because I ran out of money.

• 40:51Speaker 06

  And did people try and pigeonhole you into the pop star?

• 40:56Speaker 07

  Well, no, I met this lovely woman called Anne Barrett, who was my first manager. And she really nurtured me and introduced me to Phil Fornelli, who produced my first album, and all the songwriters of the demos at that time. Um, so I've got a lot to thank her for. I felt safe with her and so that's when I started songwriting. And it was that, the demos that I worked on with her, that she took in to RCA Records, to Jeremy Marsh, who then signed me. And one of the demos was Torn.

• 41:25Speaker 06

  Wow.

• 41:26Speaker 07

  So that's how it happened.

• 41:27Speaker 06

  Let's talk about Torn, because it was a blessing and a problem, like in a way, because it's huge success, like literally must have taken everyone by surprise. It just, I mean, it was a worldwide spectacular hit. The album, full stop.

• 41:51Speaker 07

  Yeah, I think it leaked onto K-Rock in America, which was not even a station that played pop music. I don't know how, but it got played and then, so it kind of broke itself in America. And then we were chasing it around the States.

• 42:09Speaker 06

  I mean, Grammys?

• 42:10Speaker 07

  I got nominated.

• 42:11Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean.

• 42:13Speaker 07

  It's wild.

• 42:14Speaker 06

  Like madness.

• 42:15Speaker 07

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:16Speaker 06

  And what, you're, how old at this point, 22?

• 42:19Speaker 07

  I think so.

• 42:21Speaker 06

  Something around, around that, like still ridiculously young.

• 42:24Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 42:24Speaker 06

  Um, Brits, you won, you, didn't you win two Brits?

• 42:28Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 42:28Speaker 06

  Yeah. So like it's a ward, Sarah, and it's, it's bigger than you've ever experienced before and it's something completely new again. Is it, is it, is it like we're inventing yourself, you know, actor, oh, musician, different hat? Or were you just being you?

• 42:49Speaker 07

  Yeah. I was just me. And they were all things I did from.

• 42:53Speaker 06

  Already?

• 42:54Speaker 07

  Yeah, singing into a hairbrush.

• 42:57Speaker 07

  Not much had changed and I was very rehearsed, so I was like a stage school kid.

• 43:01Speaker 06

  And so would you call yourself very professional, like you weren't just mucking about or?

• 43:06Speaker 07

  I still am a bit rehearsed.

• 43:10Speaker 06

  So Torn was a, a, a, a, not just an epic in terms of awards, but even just the amount of streams, the amount of albums sold, obscene. Uh, it was something like, how many times a day in Australia was it being played? Something like 75 times a day, I think.

• 43:31Speaker 07

  I have no idea.

• 43:32Speaker 06

  No, I mean, seriously, it was like the most streamed, yeah, and it was the most streamed track um, in the 21st century or something from the 70s, 80s, 90s. I mean, it was, it was. It, it, but, but the pressure. So then, then you're like, oh, this is brilliant. How long could you enjoy it for before you're thinking second album?

• 43:55Speaker 07

  Oh gosh, I was thinking second album the moment it happened. I was like, oh no, calm down everyone, please stop looking. I'm supposed to be quietly learning a craft here. Um, so it was this real juxtaposition of, I'm so grateful. I'm gonna be singing this song forever, make friends with it, or you'll hate it.

• 44:14Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah, of course.

• 44:15Speaker 07

  I remember thinking, you're, you're gonna win every award this year and then nothing forever. Pretty close to one tap. I haven't won many awards since that period.

• 44:25Speaker 06

  Say something.

• 44:25Speaker 07

  But like.

• 44:26Speaker 06

  Not, like, that is so rare really for people to go on and do it year after year after year. It doesn't happen like that. But you are an accomplished musician who has released a lot of amazing music. So I'm just gonna sow that seed and plant that there. You are amazing.

• 44:43Speaker 07

  I've gotten better.

• 44:44Speaker 06

  Um, but, but, but that was just too big a first album really to, the pressure for you after that must have been immense.

• 44:57Speaker 07

  It was. Um, I think for me, the fact that I was even having the thinking, what am I gonna do with this? Like what's, like knowing that I had a choice to enjoy it, like that's the gift that the meditation practice gives you, was like, you've got a choice here. You can be a victim of this, or you can just decide to make it fun and have the best year of winning awards of your life. And just love it, because what then it's like, is it bad? Is it bad? Why does it have to be bad? Doesn't have to be bad, just have a really great year. I mean, some people don't get that year. And so I'm grateful that I had that kind of perspective at such a young age.

• 45:40Speaker 07

  But it was a lot of pressure. So then it was agoraphobia, I was terrified to go out.

• 45:47Speaker 06

  Were you?

• 45:48Speaker 07

  Because people would say, how's the album coming along?

• 45:50Speaker 06

  Oh, God.

• 45:50Speaker 07

  Just that.

• 45:51Speaker 06

  And they think they're being lovely and social and.

• 45:54Speaker 07

  And it was just like, oh, I'm not that good. I just remember thinking, I'm not that good, just calm down. That was like, you know, I already know, but you're, you're gonna have to make me at, at such, in such a public forum fail. Whereas I'm already there. So it was like, oh, it was so, the biggest achievement was completing that second album.

• 46:19Speaker 06

  You have brilliantly, you know, carried on being a very accomplished musician and bringing us more brilliant music. And after three albums, your relationship with that record company came to an end. Um, and then you moved on. And, um, but can we just quickly talk about, was it called Male?

• 46:45Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah, the covers album.

• 46:46Speaker 06

  I loved that album.

• 46:48Speaker 07

  Thank you.

• 46:49Speaker 06

  It was such an interesting and out there idea for a woman to cover men's tracks. And what made you do that? Like I just, it was, it was so different. And I love the tracks you've chosen. I love the way you sound on it. Like, it's brilliant.

• 47:13Speaker 07

  Do you know, I didn't really want a record deal and so I'd gotten back into songwriting and, because I'd quit music, because I got dropped by a label. It was kind of my way back into music, but um, I'd kind of been tricked into going to this record company just to have a meeting for the future. And then I was plonked in an office and I was having to pitch myself to the head of this label. And then I got offered a deal on the spot, which was meant to be for an original material album. And I was tricked. So that's the real story behind that.

• 47:43Speaker 06

  But how mad that like you were tricked into getting signed?

• 47:49Speaker 07

  I was, yeah.

• 47:51Speaker 06

  Like that's.

• 47:52Speaker 07

  Sorry to the people that tricked me, but I, yeah, I was told it was just to go in for like future reference, but then it was clear that it was a bit of a setup. But, um.

• 48:01Speaker 06

  Can I just say, I loved it.

• 48:03Speaker 07

  Thank you.

• 48:03Speaker 06

  The result.

• 48:04Speaker 07

  Well, I was like, if I'm gonna have to, so then I thought I was doing original materials, then I was told, no, you have to do this first, which never ended up happening. I got dropped again. So I just remember walking to this window of this New York office and the voice in my head said, never look a gift horse in the mouth.

• 48:22Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 48:22Speaker 07

  That was it. Still, it's still, it's a gift. Because I was angry, I was like having all these mixed emotions. And then that, that sentence came into my head, never look a gift horse in the mouth. And I was like, all right. Because I could have stayed bitter about how it came about. It's just like, just, sometimes you just go with the gift horse, like just go with it and you don't know what's gonna come of it. And thank God I did, because I'm in my creative flow.

• 48:49Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 48:50Speaker 07

  And this is definitely what I'm meant to be doing.

• 48:53Speaker 06

  Yes, for sure.

• 48:54Speaker 07

  And, and the recognition that I'm, I'm not the best songwriter, I'm not the best singer. I'm a communicator of emotion and that's what changed it for me, is trying to be an actress and that was harder. When I went to Hollywood and, you know, later on, trying to do that. And that it's enough.

• 49:17Speaker 07

  To be that, I don't need to play guitar, I don't need to do this, I just need to be me. And recognize the gift of when I go inside myself and feel an emotion and sing it to you, you feel it. Wow. That was like, that's really, cause only I can do it the way that I do it. That's empowering, because then you, you know, that's all you, you're not trying to be a good songwriter anymore. Like, I'm a communicator.

• 49:42Speaker 06

  How nice did it feel to realize that?

• 49:46Speaker 07

  It was everything, everything, because it's like an experiential feeling of what that is, the power of that. And the decision that I do it to two people in a pub, if I change one life, that's it. Like, to have that feeling that I don't need to get to the top, arrive anywhere, that it's valid. And it's not about, you know, the money or this or that, it's like, it's about being happy. Cause when, when I moved away from what I love doing, which I encourage people to do, if you're stuck.

• 50:22Speaker 06

  What, what, what do you mean by that?

• 50:24Speaker 07

  When I got dropped by a record label, and then I quit music, cause I thought the universe didn't want me to sing. Just decided. And then I went to Hollywood to try and act, and it was so hard and so clunky. And I thought that that was my first ambition taken away because this song happened. And I was like, I'm not really not enjoying this, this is really hard, learning all these scripts and, and when I was singing, I could just close my eyes. And so just coming back, like, recognizing the gift of what you're meant to be doing, by allowing yourself to just walk away from it for a minute.

• 51:00Speaker 06

  Hmm. And not fail, but not enjoy?

• 51:04Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:05Speaker 06

  And I, I don't really want to delve into your relationships per se, but, um, you know, you, you haven't got a life partner at the moment.

• 51:16Speaker 07

  No, but I had what you're talking about in my marriage, you know, until it, until it wasn't that. But I can recognize the effortlessness, which has set the bar so high. I mean, it's really, so it's not something that's on my radar right now.

• 51:33Speaker 06

  No.

• 51:34Speaker 07

  And I don't know if that's having a child later in life.

• 51:37Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 51:38Speaker 07

  But a song from my last album, Nothing Missing, it's very true when I say, there's nothing missing. I'm not yearning for it, I'm not wishing it away, I'm not blocking it. It's okay that at, at this point in my life, I'm fulfilled, my work brings me so much joy. Being a parent, it brings me so much joy. So it's just not a thing.

• 52:04Speaker 06

  I mean, it's not a, I think what's interesting is that it's not a conscious decision. You're not making a conscious decision to not be with someone, um.

• 52:13Speaker 07

  Oh, believe me, in my thirties, I tried really hard.

• 52:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, but not now.

• 52:17Speaker 07

  No, in my thirties, it was, I was just trying to have that normal post divorce, like, I've got to be normal. And, you know, hi.

• 52:25Speaker 06

  What's normal?

• 52:26Speaker 07

  Just desperate, you know, and I really wanted a child, so I must have just been, it must have just been really frightening for men. But I, I, I did try for ten years.

• 52:38Speaker 06

  If it's all right, I would really love to talk to you about the journey of becoming a mother, because there are going to be so many women watching this. I have many friends who are at that crossroads in their life. Um, am I going to become a mother, or am I not going to become a mother? And it's a big life decision to make.

• 53:03Speaker 07

  Hmm.

• 53:03Speaker 06

  And it, for, for me, um, it's been the making of me.

• 53:09Speaker 07

  Mm hmm.

• 53:09Speaker 06

  Um, I am a better person because, um, I, of my kids. But I, I would love to just to hear a little bit of your journey, because it's not, nobody tells you. Where can you learn about it?

• 53:25Speaker 07

  I mean, for me, it was jumping through rings of fire for quite a long time.

• 53:28Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 53:29Speaker 07

  But it's, it's lots of mixed emotions. Um, one thing I do like to say out loud is, I didn't choose some feminist path of not being with a man.

• 53:39Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 53:40Speaker 07

  I think that's really unfair to men, um, because it's been written about that, about me. Oh, that I made this choice. I couldn't get arrested, I couldn't find a boyfriend, I tried really hard for a long time. And then, and then, you know, as a woman, you run out of

• 53:57Speaker 06

  Time.

• 53:58Speaker 07

  Time.

• 53:58Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 53:59Speaker 07

  And so then you start going, am I gonna have to think about, oh. And there begins the journey, and it's really intense. And, um, I mean, I'm really lonely.

• 54:11Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 54:12Speaker 07

  Um, so I just make myself available to any woman who, stranger at a party or whatever, who needs advice, I give it so lovingly and freely. Because, yeah, I just didn't have that kind of support.

• 54:28Speaker 06

  And it's hard, um, like hormonally, sometimes, the ups and downs and.

• 54:34Speaker 07

  The, the, um, the, the hormones you have to take and the ritualistic, I was like a soldier, I just, that part I could wrap my head around. I think it's harder when you stop or when a cycle doesn't work, and then you've got to pick yourself back up. That's the hard bit. I think while you're in the routine, you've got your routine and you've got to take this at this time, and it's all very. But then, when it doesn't go your way, that's the hard part.

• 54:59Speaker 06

  What was it like when it did go your way?

• 55:02Speaker 07

  Ah.

• 55:05Speaker 07

  Just the, the best.

• 55:09Speaker 07

  Yeah, pretty good.

• 55:15Speaker 07

  Davina. Sharing, I think, I spent so much of my life being guarded. It's exhausting.

• 55:24Speaker 06

  It is.

• 55:24Speaker 07

  Um, and that's, that's fear.

• 55:27Speaker 06

  Of what?

• 55:28Speaker 07

  From being judged too young in an industry that was too critical on women. And I think, um, it's good medicine for me as well, like, just rip the Band-Aid off and it's, it's okay for people to get to know who you are, you're not that bad, you know?

• 55:44Speaker 06

  Can I say something?

• 55:47Speaker 06

  You're gorgeous, like, inside. I, I am so in awe of.

• 55:54Speaker 07

  Don't make me cry again.

• 55:56Speaker 06

  For everything you've done.

• 55:57Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 55:58Speaker 06

  It's incredible. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, go somewhere else, try something else. Vulnerable, strong, sassy, like, talented, you're just fucking knockout, like, I can't quite get over it.

• 56:15Speaker 07

  But I feel like you're a little bit like me in that, do you quite like being the underdog? Like, when you've got to fight for something, I just, it's a personality trait, I'm much more comfortable digging myself out of a hole than being on the top of a mountain and got there, like, now what? Well, now all I can do is fall off the pedestal, but I just have always been very good at when I have to prove myself.

• 56:40Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 56:41Speaker 07

  I'll show them, you know, that feeling, it's really, it's character building.

• 56:45Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 56:46Speaker 07

  So, yeah, I've had to do that a lot.

• 56:48Speaker 06

  You, you'd tried many times and you got pregnant.

• 56:53Speaker 07

  Yeah, I think it was at least five year journey, many, many attempts.

• 56:57Speaker 06

  Did you worry, because when I got pregnant, hmm, um, I think as, as somebody who's well known, and something big like a pregnancy happens,

• 57:10Speaker 06

  I was so fiercely protective by my kids, like a lioness.

• 57:17Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 57:18Speaker 06

  So for you, getting pregnant after trying and everything, and you're on this journey.

• 57:24Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 57:25Speaker 06

  What was that like? Were you like a lioness? Were you like, oh, I don't want to tell people, I do want to.

• 57:30Speaker 07

  I hid it for six months, because the energy coming at you, and cause I'm quite an energy sensitive person, I just didn't want the energy coming at me. So I kept it hidden for as long as I could. And then I was like, I mean, there's a price on my head for the photos, so like, it's, you've got to make certain choices. And I think it was, my family, friends, the Bransons, were very supportive and helpful with advice on, at that time of my life. And I just made the decision to put a statement out, and I remember being terrified, because I'm very private, and so having to put this statement out to protect myself and the baby, to just get it out the way. And I just remember crying all the way to Oxfordshire, bawling my eyes out.

• 58:15Speaker 07

  And do you know what? I just got inundated with the most beautiful DMs from all these women, just saying, thank you so much, I need to talk to you, I really want to do that. And it just hadn't occurred to me how many people I could help in just, that little, that wasn't that big of a deal, it was just putting a statement out. But, um, and then realizing that that was actually quite a big deal at that time, so, yeah.

• 58:42Speaker 06

  And then you gave birth?

• 58:45Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 58:47Speaker 06

  And, um, you had a son who's six?

• 58:51Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 58:51Speaker 06

  How have you changed? Like, what's it changed for you becoming a mum? Like, if anybody's watching and they're like, oh, I don't know if I want to, or was it, was it, I mean, you, you, you, you fought for a very long time to get here.

• 59:07Speaker 07

  Rings of fire. I believe if, if you're, if you've made that sole contract, that child is yours. There's this little thing called time, and maybe they want to be a Libra and born in twenty nineteen. So you've got to jump through a few more rings of fire. But whichever way you become a parent, how, whatever the story is, whether you adopt, whether it's my way, whether it's, it doesn't really matter, like, when you, when you meet your child and you have that recognition, it's the most beautiful, incredible thing. And for some people, that's not the thing. So there's also people whose destiny in this lifetime is to not

• 59:50Speaker 07

  have a child. And that's okay too.

• 59:53Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 59:53Speaker 07

  I think there's so many social pressures on what your life needs to look like. And so I think just follow your intuition. I mean, I prayed for the yearning to be a mum to be taken away from me. Because that's what I, that was, was just to take the yearning away.

• 1:00:09Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10Speaker 07

  Because it was a biological.

• 1:00:13Speaker 07

  This wanting, like if I just didn't want it, if I didn't yearn for it, then I'd be able to just get on with it.

• 1:00:21Speaker 07

  And so, and, and that's because that soul was there waiting to be a Libra in 2019. You know, so I just kept jumping through the rings of fire and, and, and yeah, so it's just the best, the best thing ever. And it's the most, it's like everything else has more joy. There's way more stress. All you do is schedule. Your life's just scheduling and, but it's so much joy.

• 1:00:49Speaker 07

  The joy far outweighs the extra stress.

• 1:00:51Speaker 06

  Hmm. You know, I'd quickly like to talk to you about perimenopause, actually, because you talked earlier about thinking, I can't do my job anymore. I felt exactly the same thing.

• 1:01:02Speaker 07

  Hmm.

• 1:01:03Speaker 06

  I couldn't remember people's names on a live TV show to the point where my,

• 1:01:07Speaker 07

  Terrifying.

• 1:01:08Speaker 06

  my exec producer came up to me afterwards and said, are you okay? And I was like, yeah, I'm fine. And then she left the room and I burst into tears.

• 1:01:16Speaker 07

  So confusing.

• 1:01:17Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 1:01:17Speaker 07

  Mine was seeing this expression in other people's face.

• 1:01:23Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:01:23Speaker 07

  Like, like, you know, like when you're, you're the anxiety and you're like, and then they're like, and so they look a bit frightened.

• 1:01:31Speaker 06

  Or the naught to sixty.

• 1:01:32Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:01:32Speaker 06

  I was a fury.

• 1:01:33Speaker 07

  So they're like, and they're like, and they're like, oh God. And you see it too, like a lot in the day. And you're like, it was actually in one of my songs, but I changed the whole verse. So it's, it was in the song Debbie. And it was, there's that face again, there's that face again. And that terrified me. I was like, why am I keeping on seeing that face in other people? Not in one person. Everyone's looking at me with this kind of like, you know, who wants to be giving that reaction to someone? It's not cool.

• 1:02:06Speaker 06

  I did, um, I did a talk for a company once about the menopause and I talked about rage and how for women in particular, it's such a shameful emotion, right?

• 1:02:16Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:02:16Speaker 06

  And it's something that often we don't have or we suppress until perimenopause. And then you can't suppress it anymore. And a woman came up to me afterwards and had a little cry and said, I'm so full of shame.

• 1:02:29Speaker 07

  Wow.

• 1:02:30Speaker 06

  I've, I've really, the rage is.

• 1:02:33Speaker 07

  It's, it's, it's real.

• 1:02:35Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:02:35Speaker 07

  But I'm Sicilian, I'm already too much.

• 1:02:38Speaker 06

  I'm half-breed.

• 1:02:39Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:02:41Speaker 07

  So when you're too much before peri, and then you, you know, go through this thing and you're like the triple too much, it's, it's, it's hard to, it's, there's a lot of shame. I had the funniest, I have to tell you, I had this breakfast club.

• 1:02:57Speaker 06

  What's that?

• 1:02:57Speaker 07

  With my girlfriends, but they're all like 10 years my junior, like we meet up for breakfast club. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:03Speaker 06

  How lovely.

• 1:03:04Speaker 07

  And I was telling them.

• 1:03:05Speaker 06

  Yeah. Oh, well, how useful are you?

• 1:03:08Speaker 07

  I was telling them, well, yeah, but know your audience. I was like, so, oh girls, it's been, it's been so stressful because like I hit peri and suddenly I'm like before a show, I'm really anxious and I'm really tetchy and I'm behaving in this way. And I was talking and talking and, you know, and then this, one of the girls, who shall remain nameless, was like, um, I'm really sorry, but I just have to admit that I thought peri was a person. So this girl was holding space for me to hitting peri because I hit peri. And then she's thinking, oh, I suppose if I was anxious enough, maybe I'd hit someone because I was saying I hit peri, meaning I hit peri menopause, got to that point in my life.

• 1:03:52Speaker 07

  So she's thinking peri's a person and that I punched, turned to violence, holding space for the violence, nodding politely and then admitted and she's like.

• 1:04:03Speaker 06

  God, she said something.

• 1:04:04Speaker 07

  Yes. She's going, oh really? And she thought, I wondered if anyone's checked off.

• 1:04:10Speaker 07

  And that was my, know your audience. 10 years my junior, because they're, obviously they're not there yet and I'm going, oh.

• 1:04:17Speaker 06

  Super grateful now.

• 1:04:18Speaker 07

  Well, I just.

• 1:04:19Speaker 06

  They're heading that way.

• 1:04:20Speaker 07

  I talk about it at Cox's dinner parties, it's not, you know, it wasn't popular, but I, there's a feminist in me that when I had the tiniest bit of shame, I was like, no, this is not okay.

• 1:04:31Speaker 06

  Well done.

• 1:04:32Speaker 07

  And so I would just speak about it and malfrance of Michael, like, you know, how's your vagina? And so, but it's, it's, it's medicine for me to talk about it and removing that shame and that stigma.

• 1:04:48Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:04:48Speaker 07

  Because the more it's spoken about and the more it's normalized, then we, then the people coming after us don't have to live with the shame. So it's our duty and responsibility to not have to go through that year where we're saying, I don't feel like myself for 12 months.

• 1:05:03Speaker 06

  Hmm. Yes, you can actively, um, take a role in your own future.

• 1:05:09Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 1:05:10Speaker 06

  Take a part and decide, make a decision about, I mean, even before you hit perimenopause, you can have a rough idea of when you do, what action you would like to take. You can either choose to.

• 1:05:21Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:05:22Speaker 06

  not take, um, HRT or take HRT. It's great to know before you hit it.

• 1:05:27Speaker 07

  Have you done intervention?

• 1:05:28Speaker 06

  What path you're gonna do.

• 1:05:29Speaker 07

  Have you done intervention on women?

• 1:05:31Speaker 06

  I've done countless interventions.

• 1:05:32Speaker 07

  So many interventions.

• 1:05:33Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:05:34Speaker 07

  Just let me lather some estrogen on your arm, you know?

• 1:05:37Speaker 06

  But I think, um, or, or Instagram's been amazing for women in perimenopause.

• 1:05:43Speaker 07

  You single-handedly caused a shortage of estrogen on your NHS.

• 1:05:49Speaker 06

  Yeah, there's still a shortage of patches. This is bad.

• 1:05:52Speaker 07

  I bumped into you, do you remember?

• 1:05:54Speaker 06

  Yes, I do.

• 1:05:55Speaker 07

  So I watched your documentary and then I saw you in a restaurant and I was like, we need to talk.

• 1:05:58Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:05:59Speaker 07

  What brand of testosterone? And I, I like wrote down everything and you checked in with me and I talk about you all the time for what you've done for me because I seen those two, um, women scientists speak, show the picture of the colors in the brain.

• 1:06:17Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:06:18Speaker 07

  I didn't know.

• 1:06:18Speaker 06

  Lisa Moscone.

• 1:06:19Speaker 07

  I didn't know that it was affecting my brain like that. So just associating it, just not with your period's gonna stop, you know, to, it's my brain needs feeding.

• 1:06:29Speaker 06

  It's a, it's a movement now. It's absolutely brilliant. And there were women before me, um, I just was right time, right place, I think.

• 1:06:38Speaker 07

  No, I just think you're, you use your position to help people.

• 1:06:44Speaker 06

  Thanks, Natalie.

• 1:06:44Speaker 07

  And it doesn't matter how uncomfortable it makes you, you'll just, you do it for the greater good. And so I'm really grateful because I got all the tips direct from you and I've helped so many other women.

• 1:06:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, I was just gonna say, you know, this is, the other thing I love about being a woman and, you know, being a woman, the reason why we love women is because being a woman is fucking tough sometimes. And we go through a lot and we have crosses to bear, physical, mental, emotional, like, but it brings us closer together. We, we will always have something in common with any woman we meet. We'll find it, we'll find something.

• 1:07:29Speaker 07

  I just feel like also from when I was younger, it just feels like women are generally more supportive of women.

• 1:07:36Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:07:37Speaker 07

  Have you noticed that? Or is that just getting older?

• 1:07:39Speaker 06

  I think it's because of what we go through. You know, we suffer, but our suffer brings community.

• 1:07:45Speaker 07

  It does.

• 1:07:46Speaker 06

  Yeah. And also I love the idea, what you just said, you tell one woman something valuable and she'll tell 10.

• 1:07:54Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:07:55Speaker 06

  Um, couple of things, I've got a couple of gifts for you.

• 1:07:58Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 1:07:59Speaker 06

  So I just want to show you something from, um, a friend of ours, um, who just wanted to say hi to you. Ready?

• 1:08:09Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:08:11Speaker 06

  Hello, Natalie and Brilliant. Two of my favorite people sat opposite each other. Um, Joel, I'm here, I just wanted to say, Natalie, you're genuinely one of my favorite people that's ever been on the show. Uh, we loved you on the Mars thing. It really felt like you were one of the first people to sort of properly embrace the costume and have fun in there. And the audience is just like fell in love with you and, um, and you really had a great time and you are a worthy winner. And I think still one of my favorite reveals of all time, I think I remember saying, I fancy you so much, which was, yeah, which is, I, I think I've been meaning for the, maybe the last of four years or so to apologize for that, but I'll be honest, I stand by it.

• 1:08:57Speaker 06

  I fancy Debbie a little too. I fancy you both. I'm glad I'm not in the room.

• 1:09:02Speaker 06

  Have a lovely interview. Um, yes, speak soon. Bye bye, bye bye, bye bye.

• 1:09:08Speaker 07

  He's so lovely. You know what happened after the show? He and his missus, what's his lovely wife's name? Hannah.

• 1:09:15Speaker 06

  Hannah.

• 1:09:16Speaker 07

  He and Hannah rang me drunk to tell me that he fancies me, the both of them. And I think they were singing Torn. And I was like, this is wild, you guys are great.

• 1:09:28Speaker 06

  Can I tell you something weird?

• 1:09:29Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:09:30Speaker 06

  Their son is called Wild.

• 1:09:32Speaker 07

  No way.

• 1:09:33Speaker 06

  Anyway, we've got one other present for you.

• 1:09:35Speaker 07

  Okay. Thanks, Joel, love you.

• 1:09:37Speaker 06

  Your son.

• 1:09:39Speaker 07

  From my son?

• 1:09:40Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 1:09:42Speaker 06

  Um, and he just wanted you to do this, to, to do this for you.

• 1:09:49Speaker 07

  Did he draw this?

• 1:09:50Speaker 06

  He drew it. Uh, this is him and his mate, Charlie, I think he's called.

• 1:09:55Speaker 07

  That's his best friend at school, which one? So that's Charlie.

• 1:09:57Speaker 06

  Charlie, uh, you were eating something and he got some stuff on his mouth.

• 1:10:02Speaker 07

  Spaghetti.

• 1:10:03Speaker 06

  It got all messy, this is bolognese. And it was really funny.

• 1:10:07Speaker 07

  Is that me?

• 1:10:07Speaker 06

  That's you.

• 1:10:08Speaker 07

  What's this hair, do you think?

• 1:10:09Speaker 06

  Um.

• 1:10:10Speaker 07

  My hair?

• 1:10:11Speaker 06

  Yes, I think so.

• 1:10:12Speaker 07

  This is the cutest.

• 1:10:13Speaker 06

  It's a framer.

• 1:10:15Speaker 07

  I shall treasure this. That's amazing, thank you.

• 1:10:17Speaker 06

  Love you.

• 1:10:18Speaker 07

  That's so sweet. Thank you, love you so much.

• 1:10:20Speaker 06

  Grazie mille.

• 1:10:21Speaker 07

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:10:23Speaker 06

  So just in case you missed this episode here, um, if you love this episode, I know you're gonna love that.

• 1:10:37Speaker 00

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