Interview with Andrew Denton

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They say whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Delta Goodrem may well agree. At the exact same moment that she rocketed to fame with her music she was struck down with cancer. Since then she's lived through break up of her parent's marriage, the pain of having to remove her mum as her manager and the heat of the British tabloid press. All this and only 22. We haven't seen her for quite a while. How does her life look now?

ANDREW DENTON: Hello. Good to see you.

DELTA GOODREM: You too. Hi.

ANDREW DENTON: Hello, Delta, we haven't seen you for a while. Why did you leave Australia, why?

DELTA GOODREM: Well, I didn't actually leave.

ANDREW DENTON: You left.

DELTA GOODREM: I spent a time away. OK, maybe I left. It was actually the - I needed to sort of just, maybe get a bit of time to find my feet. I kind of needed to heal from a couple of demons I might have picked up from so much chaos so quickly, and my parents divorcing and just a couple of things. And I think I - it did me the absolute world of good. I feel like I've done a bit of a 360. I started with 'Innocent Eyes' and I was so enthusiastic, and loved music, and couldn't wait to do it every morning and go and sing for people but then it got very, very pressurised and busy and hard. And I feel now that after I took the time away, I feel I've started again and with enthusiasm and I'm ready to go again. I want to sing for people. I want them to have the music. It's a nice feeling.

ANDREW DENTON: We'll settle back, we're going to take you through the whole thing, just relax.

DELTA GOODREM: Sorry.

ANDREW DENTON: Breathe in, breathe out.

DELTA GOODREM: I still get a little nervous.

ANDREW DENTON: There's no reason to get nervous. Are you OK?

DELTA GOODREM: Yes. (Laughs).

ANDREW DENTON: Now, something I've only just recently found out about you. We all know you as a singer, but you could have been an elite athlete, is that right?

DELTA GOODREM: That’s right. Sport was my absolute love. It was very sporty household. We had my - my brother and I both loved sports. My brother plays AFL now. You know, every sport - my house was a competitive house. We even had a trophy cabinet outside our bedrooms. So literally my brother and I would count our trophies and see who was winning. There was always a big competition in our household because we were both really big sports people and I won Sports Person of the Year a couple of times in my school, and beat all the boys and all the girls. And this - once I, um, the one time once I won the ARIAs and I said to my brother "I think I win the trophy competition." I was like "I think I've got enough trophies now." He's like "No, Delta, you still don't win." I said "Surely the ARIA counts for two." He said "No, no, one."

ANDREW DENTON: Tough house.

DELTA GOODREM: I'm like - fine, OK. I'm still losing to my brother.

ANDREW DENTON: We've got some footage of you, this is you, you would have been nine or 10, I think. Check young Delta.

FOOTAGE PLAYS OF DELTA

DELTA GOODREM: I love singing.

ANDREW DENTON: How old were you then?

DELTA GOODREM: Um, I was probably about - I was probably about seven years old.

ANDREW DENTON: Seven, and what was that for?

DELTA GOODREM: The teachers told my parents, to, “Maybe Delta should put her energy into something outside of school.” And, um, that happened to be acting and music. And then I went to a place around the corner from our house, and we literally - I went to an acting school and they said "You know, we've got these castings you can start going for TV" and my mum and I just said "Oh, really?” You know, “OK.”

ANDREW DENTON: Actually you were the love interest, if I can put this correctly, of the fat kid from 'Hey Dad'.

DELTA GOODREM: I was, yes, it was love at first sight for us really.

ANDREW DENTON: Your first serious relationship?

DELTA GOODREM: Really.

ANDREW DENTON: See, I always thought you two would make it, and I was shocked when you broke up, but there you go.

DELTA GOODREM: I apologise, I'm really sorry.

ANDREW DENTON: I got over it.

DELTA GOODREM: Good to hear.

ANDREW DENTON: As a young kid, you used to cut out the Top 40 charts and stick them on your wall.

DELTA GOODREM: I did. I put the ARIA - sorry, I put the ARIA chart on the wall and I whited out who was at number one and I wrote Delta Goodrem. And so, even from when I had my very first single I was 15 years old. I think it debuted at 62, I was very excited. That even, when that happened, I looked at the ARIA chart and I could still see myself at number one, and I thought it was a really good, positive sort of attitude to grow up with. Looking at - that was my goal, that's what I wanted to do.

ANDREW DENTON: So, if I were to white out Rove McManus's name for a gold Logie, would that - no, never mind.

DELTA GOODREM: If we got everybody in the room to maybe white out and then write Andrew Denton.

ANDREW DENTON: Look, I might beat Larry Emdur with this number of people, I'll never beat Rove. When Glenn Wheatley - because he became your manager at 13, and one of the things he said that really struck him was how determined you and your mum were. You were really focused on what you wanted from your career. What - at that age, do you remember what the game plan was?

DELTA GOODREM: I think back then it was more just, you know, my parents, I had a dream and my parents supported me and believed in me and that's what it was. It wasn't - it wasn't like we will do it this way and scheme this way. It was just, it was just a belief and a support team of my family.

ANDREW DENTON: I want to show a clip here because you signed with Sony when you were 15. When you were 17, this was your first - was this your - 'I Don't Care' that was the one that went to -

DELTA GOODREM: It couldn't even be a worse like title for me 'I Don't Care'. I do care.

ANDREW DENTON: It's a little less driven perhaps -

DELTA GOODREM: Maybe a bit different to 'Born to Try'.

ANDREW DENTON: This is Delta's first clip I don't care.

CLIP OF DELTA PLAYS

ANDREW DENTON: Oh, I was so going to wear that outfit tonight, I'm glad I didn't.

DELTA GOODREM: Thank god you didn't, you would have shown me up.

ANDREW DENTON: At the time there was a bit of a push to give you the Britney Spears look. Why wasn't that you?

DELTA GOODREM: The thing was you don't really, um, when you start with a record company you don't really know what the whole process is. You don't know how the whole military operation before a song even gets to the radio and for people to even get to hear it and what happened was - it was - it was the very pop era, there was a lot of pop which was fantastic. Pop was great fun. Pop is popular music. There was no such thing as ballads on the radio when 'Born to Try' came out. It was a wonderful moment. Actually, I used to wind down all the windows and turn it up really loud when it first came out, push it out. I was like "It's a good song, isn't it, really good song."

ANDREW DENTON: And loud, too.

DELTA GOODREM: It was very loud. Buy the song.

ANDREW DENTON: At this time you had both music and television career both taking off. What was your schedule like?

DELTA GOODREM: Really stupid, really silly.

ANDREW DENTON: And it started to affect you in strange ways, didn't it? The 2002 ARIAs, the one before you won all those ARIAs which you could show to your brother, you turned up in a kaftan. Now this wasn't an obscure Kamahl tribute.

DELTA GOODREM: No.

ANDREW DENTON: There was a reason for that.

DELTA GOODREM: I wasn't joining any religion or anything, no.

ANDREW DENTON: Why were you wearing the kaftan?

DELTA GOODREM: Because I was covered in a rash from head to toe. I mean not my face, luckily from there downwards. I looked like I'd had the chicken pox or some sort of, um, rash and I couldn't - I couldn't let anyone see it because I'm sure they would run a mile from me.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah.

DELTA GOODREM: But it wasn't contagious. It was the first signs that my immune system was breaking down. And it was a very early on that I got those signs. I had obviously been working ridiculously. I was so excited because what I had dreamed of doing was now something I was getting to live every day and I was loving it so much.

ANDREW DENTON: Other things started to happen, didn't they? The night sweats, tell us about those?

DELTA GOODREM: Yep, one of the telling signs with cancer, or bad cells in your body, was that, um, you have night sweats during the night and I was having - I would wake up like I had been in a bath, from head to toe. I was drenched.

ANDREW DENTON: You started to get very fatigued, didn't you?

DELTA GOODREM: I was exhausted. Those couple of weeks before that I had started to go to the gym because I thought I'm obviously not fit enough to handle this schedule. I need to start - I need to start running, I need to start back again.

ANDREW DENTON: You weren't tired enough, so you thought you would get tired.

DELTA GOODREM: No, you think sometimes you're just not fit, I'm eating the wrong foods, all those things, and I found the lump by going to the gym and doing a sit up. I was with another cast mate and I felt my lump and I thought I'd popped - I thought I'd actually popped my collar bone out and the tumour had started to make its ugly little face to my neck.

ANDREW DENTON: Is the moment you were told still clear to you?

DELTA GOODREM: Yes, oh, very much so. Very much so. Like, you know, it was - it was really - I was 18 years old, I was petrified. It wasn't - it wasn't a joke, and when I hear people saying, you know, “Oh, she just had a brush with cancer, it was as mild cancer.” I go — sorry, I was about to swear. But it was shit. It was like, excuse me, but like it was, it was really hard. It wasn't, you know, your whole world turns upside down. My world turned from being planes, trains and automobiles and seeing people and trying to give the music and sing on live performances, to going to oncologists, haematologists, every single doctor you could imagine. My nurses, that was my world now.

DELTA GOODREM: I felt - I wrote in my diary that I actually felt like I was animal trapped in a corner. Like I couldn't stop shaking, I wouldn't shake - I'll tell you the minute I actually found out if you want. I was sitting down and the door opens and my mum walks in and then my brother walks in behind her. Now, my brother doesn't come into the city for anything. Like, he's quite happy out there. He's like "Do I have to drive in to see Delta." And once I saw Trent my stomach dropped because I kind of could see, obviously when you see your family and you can see their faces I said "What's wrong, what's going on?" And I looked back and Vince had tears going down his face. I said "What's, what's going on?" And they said, "Ah, they think you have cancer." And I just - and I just stopped and I just, you know, obviously again the shaking started and I couldn't stop shaking. I just shook. And I just burst into tears obviously and I was petrified and I got to the doctors and I just bawled and bawled and bawled I was like — my god, my god. But at the same time I never thought - I never ever have thought - why me? And I'm not - I am not at all a victim at all. I don't - I never look at myself like that. People might have started to say things and I thought - no, no, no. I'm much - I'm different to that, that's not how I am. I was - I was - during it I was, I was trying the best I could to be a bit of a bull and look at my, you know, health but physically it was very, very hard.

ANDREW DENTON: What are your sense memories of this time? For instance, the oncology ward and chemo and things like that?

DELTA GOODREM: I remember the first time I walked into the oncology unit and I noticed, you know, there was no-one else that was 18 in there. There was no kids in there either so I kind of felt, I felt, you know, I know there was so much support and I'm forever thankful to people because people were really lovely to me. I thought I must have been a bit - I must have been a good kid because I had a lot of lovely letters and flowers. I kept checking I was still there because I had so many flowers. I thought - oh my god, I'm still here, right.

ANDREW DENTON: And of course you lose all your hair which is very much a part of your identity. How did you deal with that?

DELTA GOODREM: I didn't care about the hair thing. It didn't bother me. It only mattered to me when I started to come back into the world and I had short, spiky hair, or for the fact I started to say I'm 18 and I have a comb over, I've got barely any hair and I'm starting to have little wisps, you know. That was the only parts - I would make a joke of it. Like I had a lot of - there were some really funny moments, I mean

ANDREW DENTON: What made you laugh?

DELTA GOODREM: Um, many times my family would call me Yoda from Star Wars or, you know, I had one funny thing that's probably might sound a bit sick but it was kind of funny… After I had the tumours out, the first operation, I was starting to wake up thinking - maybe it was a really bad, you know, maybe this was a wake up call for me, it wasn't, but maybe it was a wake up call, I've got to slow down. And because mum was there, just a little, you know, pretty upset and she was a bit shaky and sort of I was just waking up and she was like "Do you need, um, do you - I'll get you a drink?" I'm like "It's fine, Mum", I had things hanging out of me, the neck the arms and my mum and I were in there and she was devastated and she like accidentally dropped the apple juice all over my - all over the gown, so I was drenched right. I was lying there drenched "I'm fine." "It's not fine, I'm so sorry." I'm going "It's fine, Mum, it's fine, it's fine." She's going "OK, we'll just change the nightie." I was like "OK, we'll change the nightie." So I moved to the side and I'm sort of taking - and she's moved a couple of my drips and, um, and they've started spurting blood everywhere, you know. And so Mum's seeing the blood and one of the, them's half up, the whole cannula’s filling with blood and Mum's going "Oh my god" and she's fainted. And I stood there, and I was - and I'm half naked. So I'm sitting there basically nud in the hospital like drenched in apple juice with blood spurting out of my arm and mum's on the floor naked. I'm - sorry - sorry, she's not naked, oh my god, sorry, sorry Mum.

ANDREW DENTON: You just keep going, this is getting better and better.

DELTA GOODREM: So sorry, no, but I mean, she was out cold. Anyway, she's out - she's out cold and then I'm trying to go oh my god, because I'm not good with blood at this stage. I am now, but I like I really wasn't at this stage. I'm going - OK, alright, there's no-one in the room, alright, what do we do? I was sort of like was buzzing the call button, I'm sort of covering up and I'm like "Hi, we've had a bit of an accident here. Would you mind helping my mum and putting the drink back in please, I can't handle the blood anymore."

ANDREW DENTON: I love the thought of that nurse working in seeing you covered in apple juice and naked.

DELTA GOODREM: I was sitting here covering my breasts like this.

ANDREW DENTON: And the nurse is "I'm not even going to ask, we see a lot of stuff here." You said you got a lot of support, and you got messages from people you didn't even know that well. People like Elton John, Russell Crowe, Olivia Newton-John sent you a long letter. Did you, nonetheless, feel alone quite often?

DELTA GOODREM: Yeah, definitely, definitely. I mean, you've got to remember I was only 18 years old. I didn't - I didn't know - I was - you know, it was physically, the scariest thing I'd ever gone through. I don't want to dwell on it because it's in the past now, I've dealt with it, I feel better than ever now. I feel -

ANDREW DENTON: Is it all gone?

DELTA GOODREM: I don't think you can ever say like it's all gone. I think you can just say that you continually get check ups and, you know, I'm in remission and I want to be able to, um, be able to pass on - let my say, when I go to the hospitals, for example, I feel a real empathy with people going through it and I kind of think that's special because I'm not just going there as a face going like "How are you feeling? Are you OK?" And I'm like "Tell me how the chemotherapy's going, have you started radiation yet?” You know, “Have you gone through all the emotional sides?" Because in that whole chapter I definitely believe I had an after effect of cancer.

DELTA GOODREM: You know what? I'm not as scared anymore. This is, life's not meant to be scary. Those things are scary and people who go through really serious things in life are scary. Not, not doing, not doing what I do. That's how I could get through the ARIAs.

ANDREW DENTON: Well actually we've got some footage of that night. This is that night where you were able to say to Trent "Cop this, mate." This is when you won seven ARIAs, including Single of the Year.

FOOTAGE OF DELTA AT ARIAS

ANDREW DENTON: Now to outside viewers you were king of the world or queen of the world at that point. How strange a night was that for you? It wasn't even your hair for a start, was it?

DELTA GOODREM: No, it wasn't. I was blown away, I was so excited. I was very, I was like - I got to go up and be able to say thank you to people again, and people were talking about my music. It wasn't about health. I wasn't there because of what happened with my health. I was there because people took my album into their home.

ANDREW DENTON: It was an incredible peak. After that all subsided and you finished your cancer treatment.

DELTA GOODREM: My family was there, it was beautiful.

ANDREW DENTON: Then started a very strange journey for you.

DELTA GOODREM: It was really strange after that.

ANDREW DENTON: A series of challenges. First of all there was your public relationship with Mark Philippoussis which you found out was over in the press when Paris Hilton said she was going out with Mark Philippoussis. Made it even worse by saying that Mark had said you were boring. At that point did you -

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DELTA GOODREM: That's why I wanted to spice it up. I thought after that, I thought - you know what, don't call me boring. I'm going to be a scarlet woman next.

ANDREW DENTON: Good career move. We'll get to that in a second. At that point did you want the earth to swallow you up?

DELTA GOODREM: I was a bit embarrassed to tell you the truth, as in saying like, I'm not - it was like “Poor Delta again.” It's like “I'm not, poor Delta.” I was like “It's fine.” We weren't - we weren't a, you know, we only dated for a little while. It wasn't like a full blown serious relationship. We were a relationship in print.

ANDREW DENTON: Then your second album came out, and even though it sold well, it wasn't a patch on the first album in terms of sales and it got critically pretty average review. For someone who peaked so early, and for somebody as competitive as you…did anything less feel like a failure?

DELTA GOODREM: I really got a bit confused myself. I, I had lost my determination a little bit. I actually didn't enjoy it anymore. It was, especially around that time, when everything started to become quite negative, I thought - why am I putting myself in this position? This is not fun. I didn't have the drive anymore. I mean, I knew the album wasn't going to do what the first album did. My second album, no matter what I did, it wasn't going to do that and I knew that. I believe that in music and in a lot of things it's kind of like surfing, you can have a really big wave sometimes and then you can have a smaller wave. As long as you can continue surfing and sometimes you have that big wave again, of an album.

ANDREW DENTON: Were you able to take that to heart or were you able to say “OK that one's that one?”

DELTA GOODREM: I wasn't ready to come back into it, and I think that was my mistake too, because when you're behind closed doors and even though a picture of you is being maybe put there, it looks like you're out and about a lot more. I wasn't. I was looking after myself, healing at home, but I came back into it and I came back too quickly. You know, people were starting, for the first time to say negative things about me. It was starting to be that first realisation of, you get so much support, alright, but now, why don't you just go away and look after yourself. Because I should have, because that's what happened.

ANDREW DENTON: There was so much happening. After that your parents divorced.

DELTA GOODREM: Yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: How much harder is that to live through as an adult, do you think?

DELTA GOODREM: I had no idea that parents divorcing could affect me so much. But it really broke my heart actually and it shocked me. It was more because my brother and I had become the adults a little bit. My parents were really, um, very hurt by each other and it…wasn't pleasant. That contributed to me spending a bit more time away and now that everyone's in their place that they're meant to be. They all have wonderful, you know, my mum's got a great partner, my brother's got a partner, everyone's got their lives now.

ANDREW DENTON: Then, after this you became, as you said, the scarlet woman. You go over to England. You fall in love with Brian McFadden, very famous over there with Westlife, famous in his own right.

DELTA GOODREM: Yes.

ANDREW DENTON: And broken up with his wife who was equally famous. The British tabloids just had a field day. How intense did that get? How far did they go when you were in their sights?

DELTA GOODREM: It was a really awful time. That was - that was like the pinnacle of when I started to go this is not enjoyable anymore. This is really not fun. And I…felt really betrayed. I felt like it was - I felt that it was unjustified the comments being made.

ANDREW DENTON: They were calling you a home wrecker.

DELTA GOODREM: Yeah. And considering that I had such a like a strong family morals, I felt it was really, it was really harsh because I felt so strongly against it. I thought the best thing I could do was keep my dignity and be quiet about it. Maybe that wasn't the best thing I could have done. Maybe I should have said “No, that's not how it happened.” But I didn't. I tried to kind of go I'm not even entertaining this. I'm not throwing a log on the fire. I said to myself, “You know what, like in a week's time no-one's going to care. In a week's time no-one will lose sleep over it.” I will lose sleep because I felt sick about it. I thought it was really - it was harsh, but again it's all in past. It's not even interesting anymore. People start saying “What do you even talk about it? It's not the case.” Brian and I have been together for a long time now, and we are best friends. We have a wonderful partnership, we are a team.

ANDREW DENTON: There are reports that he's trying to get custody of his two little girls. Are you up for being a step mum at 22?

DELTA GOODREM: It is a big responsibility and I resented it at the start. I found it - I mean that's absolutely truthful. I found it really hard I was going - I don't, you know, what do I do? I don't know what to do? But, now I love them, and they're a part of our life and I'm not their mother and I don't, I don't try to be. I'm not a step mum, I'm their friend. I give them the best friend advice and when they want to talk to me, I'm like “I'm there, tell me, how are you feeling, talk to me.” And they love me, and I get on really well with them.

ANDREW DENTON: Speaking of mums, last year you changed management and your mum was your manager and she no longer is your manager.

DELTA GOODREM: Yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: She'd been with you all the way through that journey, that must have been a very tough thing for you to do, to ask her to step aside.

DELTA GOODREM: I don't think you can actually fire your mum. I don't think it's physically possible. I've tried to sack her, a couple of times as mum, but she just doesn't, you know, your mum's always there. She’s tried to sack me as a daughter I'm sure a million times. But, um, we were learning as we went along. We didn't - we didn't know the music industry until we stepped into it. We were completely a team. We're till a team. I love my mum more than anything, and I'll defend her to the grave and she'll defend me. Like we're still a team, but we couldn't be mother and daughter anymore. We were bringing work into the household, and that wasn't healthy for either of us. Both of us were like this isn't healthy for us.

ANDREW DENTON: The story has circulated that last year an email was sent, with your mum's permission or understanding, warning you that Brian was holding back your career. Brian saw this email was pretty unhappy about it and let you and your family know or let your family know and shortly after that the decision was made for your mum to stop managing you. How much truth is in that?

DELTA GOODREM: Well, um, there's elements, because what happened was, I mean naturally my mum was trying to protect me. She was scared that people were going to, you know, start to say things that weren't true. She was just scared. She wanted to protect me. Her and Brian are both very head strong, both very, um, very opinionated and -

ANDREW DENTON: Do they get on?

DELTA GOODREM: They get on really well now. The two of them even gang up on me sometimes.

ANDREW DENTON: It must have been very tough for her.

DELTA GOODREM: It was hard at the start really.

ANDREW DENTON: Because she had guided you from that high.

DELTA GOODREM: Completely, she's my mum.

ANDREW DENTON: It must be tough for Brian too because it's tough enough meeting the mother-in-law but even tougher when she's the manager of the person you're dating.

DELTA GOODREM: Yeah, and we do a duet together. Yeah. But, you know, in saying that, again, it was, it was a really different time but we all did the best we could to get through it, to be able to stand here again today for you but they get on great now and it was a bit of like, you know, they didn't get on great at the start. I mean, it wasn't fun but at the same time they both, they both know that they both - they both love me and I love them.

ANDREW DENTON: You seem to be in a very good place. You're going to bring out a new album shortly and the question in the industry is OK -

DELTA GOODREM: Tell me.

ANDREW DENTON: Are your teenage fans have they moved with you? Have they gone to Missy Higgins, someone like that, are you cool or uncool? What if the answer to that is you're uncool. How are you going to deal with that?

DELTA GOODREM: Same way as I did probably most things just go, I'll just try again. I'll just - you know, if that's the case, then, you know, then obviously I'll just…

ANDREW DENTON: You're out in the tight rope again though. You must think about these things, what's going to happen?

DELTA GOODREM: I do, but at the same time I feel really confident in my music. Like, I know I've got a great album, I love the album. It's not all about my personal experience. It's a lot about wrapping around other people's lives and stories.

ANDREW DENTON: I notice the track ‘Paris is a Bitch’. I notice that -

LAUGHTER

DELTA GOODREM: You know, what Andrew, I don't even really think about people like that. It doesn't cross any mind.

ANDREW DENTON: Unlike most 19 year olds, you've had to actually face your mortality. I wonder how that's changed you? Has that made you less ambitious?

DELTA GOODREM: It did, yeah, it did. It, um, I started to go go, “Do I want,” you know, “Do I want to put myself under so much stress in life?” But then I go, “You know what, when I get to see little kids, I'm meant to do this, this is what I'm meant to do. I'm meant to do music.” Seeing people get excited and happy, even if it means an autograph then that makes my day. I don't, you know, it doesn't matter that I don't want to do that to people. It matters that it means I made someone else smile and I love that gift. It's great for me. I love it. So I believe it's - I'm still determined but just maybe I'm going to enjoy it a little better this time.

ANDREW DENTON: Go out there and knock them dead. Delta, thank you so much.

DELTA GOODREM: Thank you so much.