Too fat. Too thin. Too happy. Too sad. Too dowdy. Too sexy. Too honest. In the 10 years since Ricki-Lee Coulter had her frst taste of fame after auditioning for the second season of Australian Idol, there isn’t much she hasn’t heard said about her.
It’s no fun, of course, having total strangers critique every aspect of your life, but it sure does help a girl learn to be resilient.
“When you frst start, it’s quite overwhelming,” Coulter recalls of the awkward adjustment that came with life in the unforgiving Idol spotlight circa 2004.
“One day no one cares about you, and then all of a sudden the women behind you in line at the supermarket are looking at you in a magazine and calling you ugly or saying, ‘Oh, she’s got a bit of a belly, doesn’t she?’
“But one of the most important lessons I learnt was that not everyone’s going to like you and you have to be OK with that. Because if you spend your life trying to seek validation from people, you’re gonna be miserable.”
While insults and snap judgements were just as fashionable a decade ago as they are now, one thing the then 18-year-old Coulter did not need to contend with was social media. Fast-forward to 2014 and the singer, like so many in the public eye, has been on the receiving end of scathing
personal attacks.
Most notable is the barrage of insults she endured – including taunts about looking like an alien – after posting a selfe on Instagram earlier this year.
A defant Coulter stared down her critics, accusing them of being bullies. “I don’t pay attention to all of that stuff, but every now and then I feel it’s important to put people in their place and say, ‘Hey!’, because it’s so easy for people to be negative,” she says of the incident.
“It’s part of our culture, as well. Look at the leaders of our country – it’s just a slagging match,” she goes on. “They’re not leaders; they’re bagging each other and trying to outlow-blow each other. That’s how the leaders of our country are setting an example for the kids!
“It happens without us even thinking of it and we’re all guilty of it, of being judgemental and criticising someone for the way they look or what they’re wearing. And, yes, everyone has an opinion. But when you start attacking somebody because you don’t like their face, or when you start attacking someone’s integrity because of the way they choose to express themselves, well, I just think people need to be more conscious of what they’re saying on social media and how that will affect someone.”
She continues, “Because, for me, the point was that half the things people say about me, they would never come up to me… and say them in the street. You would not have the balls to come up to me and say what you’ve said on your computer or your iPhone on the bus on the way home. I know they wouldn’t, because no one ever has.
“People don’t have that flter with people in the public eye, because they feel like, ‘Well, you’ve put yourself out there, we have a right to.’
Of course, have your opinion, but if you wouldn’t say it to your mum or your sister or your best friend, then don’t write it.”
The flter-free brutalities of social media aside, there’s something about a female celebrity undergoing a body transformation that galvanises opinions – both positive and negative. After a dramatic slimdown in recent years, Coulter admits her reported 30kg weight loss remains a talking point.
“I have people coming up to me and saying, ‘I’ve lost 50kg because I’ve seen you do it’ or ‘I started going to the gym and you’ve inspired me. You look so great and you look so happy.’ I think that’s an amazing thing, because they see how it changed my life – and not just in a physical way, because it’s a mental and emotional change as well.
“Of course, there are people who are like, ‘I liked you better before’, and I go, ‘Well, great. Awesome,’ ’cause, like, no offence, but I don’t value myself – and I never have – based on the size of my jeans. So the fact that you liked me better, what does that even mean?
“I still get attacked – ‘Oh, you’ve succumbed to the pressure…’ – but I haven’t succumbed to anything. I made a choice fve years ago that I was going to get fit and healthy and I wanted to be in the best shape of my life – and what’s wrong with that?”
By “best shape” she’s not merely referring to what can be measured by the bathroom scales, noting her weight ballooned at her lowest point emotionally – her divorce from childhood sweetheart Jamie Babbington after just one year of marriage.
“I think every woman can relate,” she says. “I’m an emotional eater and when you go through a traumatic and painful and emotional time, well, that’s what I did. I ate everything in sight.”
Now engaged to personal trainer and manager Richard Harrison and planning a European wedding to be held in June or July of next year (France is the frontrunner), Coulter declares that, at 28, she’s never been happier. “When I met Rich, I was so anti-marriage, I was so anti-love, even,” she recalls. “I had been so broken by my last relationship; I was so unhappy for such a long time, and I stayed in it way longer than I should have because I was afraid to hurt him.
“I was really lost, even in my career – I wasn’t even passionate about music any more – and I had terrible friends that were just leeches sucking the life out of me. I remember sitting there, wishing and dreaming up this fantasy, imaginary man that had to tick all of these boxes to be the right guy, and when I met Rich it was like he was heaven-sent. He just came at the right time and saved me from the hole I was living in.”
It’s an anecdote that has inspired a song on her new album, Happy Ever After, on which she also serves as executive producer. But while she’s clearly relishing the creative control she now enjoys over her career, her new-found bliss brought with it an unexpected dilemma.
“I am always scared to write when I’m happy, because pain and hurt and tough times really provide so much soul and heart to lyrics. So when you’re really happy, you’re like, ‘What the hell am I going to write about?’” she admits with a laugh.
“People don’t want to hear all that, you know? So it’s a lot harder, because you don’t want to be like, ‘I’m so happy, it’s amazing, everything’s glorious and there are butterfies and fowers everywhere.’ But I think the common theme is love and following your heart. Not to sound corny, though, because it’s so much deeper than that.”
With this year marking the 10th anniversary of her introduction to the Aussie public, courtesy of Idol, Coulter looks back on those early days with a mixture of fondness and bewilderment.
“It was whirlwind, like a roller-coaster. It’s like you get plucked out of your life and get thrown into what feels like a washing machine, and you don’t know where the hell you’re going to come out and where you’re going to end up.”
Reflecting on the decade just passedprompts a question as to what the next 10 years might hold, with Coulter nominating getting married, travelling and releasing more music overseas at the top of her wish list: “Who knows where I’ll be in 10 years, but I hope I’ll be as happy as I am right now.”
One thing that won’t be in her future, however, is a trip to the maternity ward, with Coulter and Harrison ruling out children.
“I felt pressured [when I was] younger and my ex really wanted that, and so you feel you maybe have to bend on that. I’m happy I’ve met Rich and we have the same views,” says Coulter, who recently revealed that as a toddler she was often “dumped” with relatives while her then teenage mother, Loretta Sherrin, would go “partying” – an experience she’d hate to infict on a child.
“I know how crazy my life is and you have to be selfsh to do what I do. I wouldn’t want to put a kid through what I went through,” she says. Fortunately, her fancé is also happy to skip the parent phase.
“Rich and I both know it’s not really something we want. True, in the past I said I’d never get married, so who knows what’s gonna happen? My mum ended up having a kid at 43, so you never know how life will change you, but right now it’s not something we see for ourselves. Right now, we are both really clucky for a dog – that’s what we know.”
Ricki-Lee’s new single, All We Need is Love (EMI), is out now.
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