Nikki flew her way into the spotlight at the Sydney 2000 Olympics opening ceremony. Since then she has continued to thrive with successes including Double Platinum selling records and ARIA nominations. She danced her way into lounge-rooms across the nation on Dancing with the Stars, appeared on Thank God You’re Here and played the dream role of Dorothy in the multi-million dollar Australian production of Wizard of Oz.

Nikki is an accomplished business women, at 24 years of age she has had extensive exposure to business and has been mentored by some of the worlds biggest and best entertainment business people during her career.

Nikki has been running her own performing arts school in Sydney with talented brother and co-founder Scott Webster for the past four years.

The gifted pair are expanding Dance @ Nikki Webster to the Central Coast following huge success in Sydney with an expansive client base that has produced stars such as leading actress in Terra Nova, Alana Mansour, as well as lead roles in Annie, Mary Poppins and the new television program Young Talent Time.

Source: Business Insider

in 1978 Gabi Schornegg auditioned for the role of Annie in the first production ever staged in Sydney. She had the opposite of traditional stage parents. “My mother did not have a clue what was going on. My father told me I did not have a hope in hell and was not really interested in me being involved in theatre,” she recalls.

As other parents looked more confident, it made Gabi more determined. With a dancing background and unproven as a singer, her expectations were low. “A voice” which she didn’t know about emerged at the audition.

She scored the coveted role and performed up to four times a week for nine months. “Many children were more talented than I was, but when I got that lucky break, I followed instructions and was a good team player,” she said.

After Annie, roles in music theatre and TV commercials came thick and fast. She said the key to staying well grounded was not wanting to be a star, but just loving the art form. “My parents put a strong emphasis on a good education, just in case it didn’t work out.”

But she only needed to hang up her dancing shoes when it came time to raise a family. Several decades later Gabi (now) Thompson took her four daughters to audition for Annie for its 2012 season. They competed against 1000 other hopefuls. “I was not going to push them, but being in Annie intrigued them.”

She started to panic when they made it into the last 50. What would happen if one got in and the others didn’t? “I was very impressed at how well they did, as they did not start dance training until a few years ago.” They missed out in Sydney, which Gabi thinks may have been a blessing in disguise, but they will try again for Melbourne.

“You’ve got to audition for the experience and not take it personally. You can miss out on a job because you have the wrong hair colour.”

Not all child stars have such success and good experiences. “It ends in tears a lot. Parents boost children up to go on to theatre careers. When they get older the competition is unbelievable. You hear tales of rejection after rejection and you are in your 20s or 30s, not married, working as a waitress in a job rather than career. It is a tough business.”

Hollywood is littered with examples of show business youngsters who don’t cope. Look at Macaulay Culkin. He became an international star in the hit Home Alone movies series. But his adolescence was plagued by family disputes and a brief time in jail on a minor drug possession charge.

But there is no shortage of those wanting to taste the fame game. Queenie van de Zandt ran a series of workshops preparing youngsters for the 2012 Annie auditions. Hundreds took part. She counsels those at her workshops to focus on the artist side. “It is tough when one of the most exciting things in your life happens when you are young. If you have a great run as a child, you start expecting everything to be like that,” she said.

“Fame is transient and you see the disastrous affect on people who try to hold on to that level of fame. I am not saying that the girl who does Annie will turn into an alcoholic. They have to say this is a fantastic experience rather than this is the beginning of a fabulous career.”

At her workshops she sees plenty of classic stage mothers and fathers. “I don’t think they are in the majority. Most parents are really lovely, but part of my workshop is to make them understand what’s involved.”

One girl who was overwhelmed by the fame which followed a big ‘show’ was Nikki Webster. In the year 2000 she auditioned for a role in the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics. “There were six months of auditions. We didn’t know what we were auditioning for. Then we heard it was about a little girl flying linked together with a storyline,” she told Stage Whispers.

A worldwide audience of more than one billion people watched her sing, act and fly around Stadium Australia. “It was difficult to cope with the overnight fame. No-one expected to have the media camped out on our door for days.” Enrollments at her school – The McDonald College of Performing Arts – tripled.

Before the opening ceremony Nikki already had years of experience under her belts, having scored professional gigs in Les Miserables and The Sound of Music. While her parents took her from one audition to another she says the “drive to perform and passion” came from within.

More success followed the Olympics. A lead role in The Wizard of Oz, her own clothing label and a number one record, Strawberry Kisses. “It became my life. I worked with the most incredible artists and fulfilled a dream at the age of 13.” The let down came when she turned 18 and was not the cute little girl anymore. “I finished a record deal and did not want to re-sign after completing four albums. So I went to Los Angeles for a period of self discovery… to find out who I wanted Nikki to be.”

Nikki says she became a victim of the tall poppy syndrome. “If I was a swimmer I would have been supported more. There were tough times – people had to accept I was not going to stay 13 years old.”

To break the mold Nikki Webster did a photo spread in lingerie for Zoo magazine in 2006. It received a hostile reception in online chat rooms. Some of the milder responses included: “Posing for a lad’s mag is possibly the dumbest way ever to prove to the world how mature and adult you are.” “I agree!! I was shocked when I saw the cover… it is just sad… to see her like that!”

When I asked Nikki about this there was silence at the other end of the phone line. She says it was a ‘fun and glamorous fashion shoot’. Since then however Nikki Webster’s career has taken a turn out of the spotlight.

Now 24, she’s engaged to be married and the next phase of her performing arts career is training and mentoring. In Sydney, with her brother and business partner, she’s opened the Nikki Webster Modelling and Talent Agency. She has 32 clients including a cast member of Mary Poppins and Annie.

“I am guiding and mentoring when they need it. It is so exciting working with up-and-coming talent. I am still writing music and will never give up performing.”

Once child stars leave the limelight it is difficult to return. Martin Portus scored the role of Oliver in JC Williamson’s first production of the musical in Adelaide in 1966. His sister took him to audition and he got the part because he had the right look and sweetly sang a Benjamin Britten song.

He says stardom did not go to his head, but recalls the excitement of people asking for autographs and being picked up in a car at school to attend a performance. “It made me obsessed about acting. I went to NIDA. All through my 20s I had good work, including an appearance as a priest in the Young Doctors, who had a naughty affair with a nurse.”

He left acting in the 1980s to commence a very successful career as a journalist and theatre critic. He’s best known as a former broadcaster of Arts programs on Radio National. Now after 30 years off the stage he’s returning in a one-man show in November. He says learning lines again is a prospect he finds ‘terrifying’, but years as a critic have helped him develop a better appreciation of good acting.

However Martin Portus says people often waste a lot of time striving to become a star. “They are seduced as children… into the illusion of celebrity, but there is often too much competition. If only more could skip the acting phase and to straight to becoming a director, sound person or a theatre critic.

“There is a greater need to help build creative industries… rather than everyone demanding attention under a spotlight.”

You can see Martin Portus under the spotlight in The Giraffe’s Uncle: The Les Robinson Story from November 16 – 27, 2011 at King Street Theatre, Netwown (02) 95195081

Auditions for Annie will be held in Brisbane and Melbourne in early 2012
www.anniethemusical.com.au/auditions.html

Nikki Webster’s dance school is in Sydney
www.dancenikkiwebster.com.au

Booking details for Annie are on the back cover.

Source: Stage Whispers
Click here to view scans of this article

Kerri-Anne: Well here’s the favourite to take out Australia’s Got Talent, the final, but now 14-year-old singing sensation Jack Vidgen is receiving very disturbing death threats via Facebook, which I guess begs the question, why are we so quick to criticize people who’ve enjoyed some success?

Nikki Webster grew up in the spotlight, knows all too well how brutal people and the media can be. Now she’s offering Jack some sound advice to help him avoid Australia’s tall poppy syndrome. She joins me to discuss how challenging it can be growing up a child star. Nikki, great to see you again.

Nikki: You too, you too. Good morning.

Kerri-Anne: It was interesting your remarks and advice to Jack Vidgen. You suggested that he leave the country, what’s behind that remark?

Nikki: It wasn’t so much ‘Get out of Australia.’ I love Australia, this is where my career started and I’m so grateful and blessed to have had the opportunities that I’ve had, and I wouldn’t change anything for the world. But I was asked to give Jack advice, and it was more the fact that the media can get quite vicious – and I hope it doesn’t for his sake – but they can get vicious, and it can affect his passion to perform and entertain, and if that’s gonna happen then he needs to go overseas and travel the world and make music throughout the world, and then Australia’s always gonna be here and we’re always gonna love him. So that was the context, that I was saying it to him.

Kerri-Anne: Are we still in the era that we appreciate our people more when they’ve gone away, done the big stuff, and come back – are we still in that era?

Nikki: You know, I think we are still in that era. When I look at the history, you know Kylie Minogue’s gone overseas, Danni’s gone overseas, there’s a lot of stars that’ve had to go overseas.

Kerri-Anne: And they’ve copped their own. Kylie: the singing budgie.

Nikki: Horrible, yeah.

Kerri-Anne: They’ve been [through] some really tough stuff. But what was is that affected you so much? You talk about how brutal the media and people can be, what do you mean by that?

Nikki: Um, I think it was more the fact that I was a 13-year-old girl who represented my country, had a wonderful opportunity, created music after that, all my dreams were fulfilled. Got to about fifteen and all of a sudden, media personalities who I thought I had a good relationship with were making me the brunt of their jokes and, you know I was sitting at home and they weren’t letting me on their show, and I was always the punch line of jokes. And I couldn’t really work out what was going on, and I’d go to school and people would say to me, “You’re this diva,” or this, that, the other, and I was like, “But you know me, we’ve grown up together.” And people were believing what they were reading and hearing more than the relationship I had with them.

Kerri-Anne: Why do you think people turn, in Australia? Is it very much the tall poppy syndrome, an Australian thing to go through?

Nikki: You know, I think it happens all over the world. I think we do put people up on a pedestal and then we kinda need to let them get a little bit rocky and give them a hard time and see if they can fight through. But I think in Australia it happens more so with our child stars – not our sports stars, we do support our sports stars – but with performers it does happen. Yes, everyone knows I went through it and I’m not crying out saying I want an apology. It happens.

Kerri-Anne: What was the most hurtful thing you remember, when you were fifteen or sixteen?

Nikki: [laughs] I think it was something where I was, I think it was on the Rove show, and they actually blew me up or something and, they had like a fake character of me and they blew me up. And I thought that was just a little bit inappropriate.

Kerri-Anne: It’s very hurtful to be constantly the butt of people’s jokes.

Nikki: And it does hurt your passion, as a child.

Kerri-Anne: And that’s what you think may happen to Jack?

Nikki: It could happen; I hope we’ve learnt and I hope we support him. He’s an incredible talent and I wish him all the best and you know I hope that we can watch his journey grow, wherever it may go musically.

Kerri-Anne: On the weekend Toddlers and Tiaras, a lot of hoo-ha about this sexualisation of young kids. How have you viewed that?

Nikki: I think we need kids to be kids. We’re only kids for such a short amount of time, we need to nurture kids, and when I opened my dance studio three years ago, it was for that reason. It was to nurture young performers, to share my experiences with them and to guide them, and protect them. You know, they’re so innocent and beautiful.

Kerri-Anne: Aren’t there parents who are just way too involved in a kid’s career?

Nikki: I think there are two sides. There are parents who live through their kids, and their kids aren’t really enjoying what they’re doing, and there are parents whose kids actually have talent, and would give up everything to make sure that kid has the best opportunity possible, to fulfil their dreams.

Kerri-Anne: Nikki, if you hadn’t been the big star you were from the Olympics, do you believe you would have had a better career and a better life?

Nikki: Not at all, not at all. My whole life has been performing. I started performing at the age of five and you know, I was doing musicals and TV, and performing and dancing. It was my dream! The fact that it came true at thirteen is just a blessing, and I wouldn’t change anything. It’s allowed me to open my dance studio, my talent agency, you know I’ve made music, I’ve done records. I’ve travelled the world and what more could a 13-year-old ask for?

Kerri-Anne: We’re just sorry for all those brickbats. Quite undeserved. But thank you.

Nikki: Definitely! Let’s support our talent and get behind them, because it’s a great thing we have incredible talent in this country.

Kerri-Anne: Well said. Nikki Webster, thank you.

Nikki: Thank you, so good to see you!

We like to describe Australia as the land of the ‘fair go’ but that’s far from the truth when it comes to the treatment of our young stars.

Some people are hell bent on tearing down child stars. Whether it’s fourteen-year-old Jack Vidgen, or six-year-old Eden Wood, there’s no stopping those who are out to get them.

Nikki Webster was the most famous little girl in Australia, a thirteen-year-old who became a household name, until she was cut down by the tall poppy syndrome.

Now it’s time for Australia’s latest talent, Jack Vidgen, to be cut down by a Facebook site offering a bounty to kill him. An unbelievable attack from cyber space, that’s now being investigated by the police.

“Thank God I didn’t have Facebook when I was in the midst of my career. I did have death threats but nothing that was so public. It was more people sending me notes and stuff like that,” Webster said.

The road to stardom in this country is littered with the psychologically broken bodies of young stars – hounded out of their own country and forced to quit promising careers.

Entertainment reporter Craig Bennett is ashamed at some of the dirty tricks and campaigns launched against our youngest stars. “I think it’s pretty heavy going in Australia. In America and Britain it exists, but I don’t think anywhere near the degree, and the really personal degree, that it exists here. And I’m really sad about that,” Bennett said.

Peter Andre is a shocking example of Australia’s obsession with knocking down our stars. “He was literally howled out of Australia. A golden boy singer, and good looking, he had a promising acting career. He then said the death threats began rolling in, the hate mail was tumultuous, to the point where he was having twenty panic attacks a day, and had to seek refuge in a mental clinic in New York,” Bennett explained.

Danni Minogue was also vilified here, and forced to England to launch her own career. Jason Donovan barely survived his Neighbours experience, becoming another star forced overseas.

Hate sites litter the internet, and our young, vulnerable and inexperienced stars are targeted by cyber warfare. The recent, shocking attacks on Bindi Irwin were some of the worst.

“There are Facebook sites springing up everywhere lampooning our fabulous talent, and taking unbelievable potshots, and saying the worst things. ‘Throw a stingray at Bindi Irwin’, is one such Facebook smear campaign, and these things are growing by the second. It is alarming, frightening, and shocking.”

Psychologist Grant Brecht warns the hate cyber sites, and threats do take their toll on young performers.

“Unfortunately because of the bullying and the death threats, we see a lot of child stars, and those with great talent, deciding not to go on with it. The price they pay is too high,” Brecht said.

“Death threats can really traumatise young people, and throw them into a great degree of uncertainty. They can suffer and develop performance anxiety where they don’t want to perform anymore, and don’t want to go out in public because they’re very frightened and fearful of what may happen to them.

“By and large we turn our backs on our own stars that have fantastic talent, so they need to go overseas to realise their full potential. That in itself is a tragedy,” Brecht concluded.

Source: Today Tonight

The 24-year-old, who at age 13 shot to fame when she starred in the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony, has advised the star on the rise that moving overseas will help avoid tall poppy syndrome.

“I wish I knew to get out of Australia at age 14, but I chose to stay in my home town and got burnt for it,” she told an Eastern States newspaper.

“If he’s got a great supportive family and has the opportunity to go overseas and make music, go do it. They (Australia) will love you when you come back.”

Webster, who now runs a dance studio, added that she hopes the nation will stay behind Vigden after the winner of the popular Seven show is decided on Tuesday.

“Hopefully he can learn from what I went through, because I guess I was one of the first in Australia to go through it, other than Kylie (Minogue),” she said.

“Australia’s a tough country. We support talent initially then we try and knock them down, so it’s about being strong and staying grounded.”

Source: The West Australian

Webster’s been cast as V, a schoolgirl, in the “teen beach movie” also starring Johnny Boxer and Matt Zeremes.

“This role is fun because I wasn’t at school a lot in years 11 and 12, so I never got to be that girly girl,” she said.

“I missed that – I was too busy designing a clothing range and releasing music.”

Webster has started her own performance school at Stanmore in Sydney’s inner west, specialising in singing, dancing and drama classes for children aged five to 16.

“It’s hard running your own business but it allows me to share my experiences with the kids and teach them,” she said.

“I love it. The benefits of having your own business and watching it grow is so rewarding.”

Webster, who gained fame after starring in the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony, recently got engaged to 31-year-old Matthew McMah who works in the aviation industry.

The pair have yet to set a date

Source: The Herald Sun

PUTTING on a school uniform for her first feature film role felt strange for Nikki Webster. Now 23, many remember her as the cute, curly blonde-haired girl who flew through the air at the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony in 2000.

“I think a part of me will always be that little girl at the Olympics,” she said. “It’s why I’m here today and it was such a wonderful experience and more people remember that about me.”

Ms Webster was excited about her role as one of the “exclusives” at the school in Short Beach. “It felt freaky putting a school uniform on again,” she said of her film role. “Feature films are something very new and exciting for me and it came out of the blue.”

Ms Webster has many projects including her dance school and talent and modelling agency on Parramatta Rd, Stanmore.

“We opened the talent agency over a year ago and we’ve got 32 clients aged 0-17,” Miss Webster said.

She said her film experience will feed back into the agency, which she started with her brother, Scott, and agent Cimone Grayson. “Getting hands on experience allows me to give feed back to my clients and tell them what I’ve learnt on set,” she said.

“I’m also writing lots of music with different writers and producers.”

The dance school has seven teachers and the business is continually growing.

“I’ve been so busy since I was 13 so I’m very used to being busy,” Ms Webster said.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
2000 Performed in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games opening ceremony.
2001 Her first pop single, Strawberry Kisses, opened at No. 2 and was nominated for an ARIA in the highest-selling album and single categories.
2001 Starred as Dorothy in Australian production of Wizard of Oz.
2002 Released second album Bliss.
2005 Participated in TV dance show Dancing with the Stars.
2007 Starred in musicals Hair and Rent.
2008 Opened dance studio with brother Scott.
2009 Opened talent and modelling agency.

Visit: dancenikkiwebster.com.au or talentnikkiwebster.com.au

Source: The Inner-West Courier (digital edition)

The golden curls and sweet smile are just the same, but there’s something new about Olympic sweetheart Nikki Webster – a sparkling engagement ring. Smiling lovingly at her fiancé Matthew McMah as the couple sits down for an exclusive chat with Woman’s Day, it’s clear the next chapter of Nikki’s life is set to be a beautiful love story.

“I can’t wait for the rest of our lives together,” she smiles.

Nikki, 23, and Matt, 31, met on a blind date on Australia Day last year, and while Matt doesn’t believe in love at first sight, he told Nikki he would call her the next day – then set his alarm for 8am to make sure he kept his promise.

It was a solid start to a romance that would see the couple gradually fall in love over rounds of putt-putt golf, cooking and movie dates. Matt took the plunge and proposed to Nikki on a romantic trip to Fiji in January this year.

“I had no idea!” Nikki giggles. “I thought Matt had booked the trip because it was our one year anniversary!” Instead, enterprising Matt had secretly brought Nikki’s engagement ring from Australia and hidden it behind a false wall in their shared safe at the resort. Then, sneaking it into his pocket, he nervously went to dinner with Nikki.

“I had my hand in my pocket all night and Nikki kept asking why,” Matt says. “I told her I was just scratching my leg.”

On the way back from dinner, the pair stumbled across a lone hammock in the dark and Matt knew the moment had arrived. “We were on the hammock when Matt got down on one knee and I said, ‘Seriously?’, thinking he was just mucking around,” Nikki remembers. “It was pitch black so I couldn’t see he was holding a ring!”

Only when Matt lit up the small box with light from his iPhone did Nikki realise he was definitely serious – but at that moment the skies opened and fierce tropical rains began beating down on the couple.

“It was raining and raining,” Nikki says, “And over the noise Matt was yelling, ‘You have got to answer me’.”

“I said, ‘Yes!’ and we started running. I didn’t even look at the ring – we just kept running back.

“It wasn’t until we stopped we suddenly thought, ‘Did this just happen?’.”

With a few days left on their idyllic island, Nikki wanted to ring home immediately with the happy news but Matt had already beaten her to it. He’d asked her parents’ permission before proposing. “They said, ‘We were wondering when he was going to do it’,” Nikki grins.

Now both families – in particular, Nikki’s older brother Scott, and Matt’s sister Jen, who set the pair up on the original date – are excitedly planning for the nuptials, likely to be held next year.

“I thought Nikki was stunning as soon as I saw her,” Matt remembers. “The more time I spent with her, the more time I wanted to spend with her and I knew within the first couple of weeks that this was it for me.”

Matt, who works for an airline, wasn’t familiar with Nikki’s special role in Australian sporting history or her success as a businesswoman. In fact, he had to Google her after fans kept approaching her in the street.

“I knew very little about Nikki’s career because at the time of the Olympics, I was living in Europe,” he explains. “I knew Nikki was a celebrity. I knew she was in the public eye. I knew what she had done, but I actually had to go home and look her up online the night we met to see it for myself.”

While Matt didn’t know much of Nikki’s history, he was certain of one thing – he had found “the one”.

“It is great that Nikki is the person she is,” Matt says. “If I have ever had any questions or there was something I wasn’t sure about or that upset me, I know I can always talk to her because she is so transparent with me. We don’t hide anything from each other.”

And Nikki agrees she has finally met her perfect match.

“I am very guarded, but there was something about Matt that wouldn’t allow me to do that and I didn’t want to do that, as well,” she says.

“For me, it is someone I can laugh with and have fun with and who makes me feel on top of the world.”

Source: Woman’s Day
View scans of this article

Holding the pink frock that made her famous, Nikki Webster marvels to think how it became one of the most enduring symbols on the Sydney Olympics Opening Ceremony in 2000. She can hardly believe she once fitted into the miniature outfit. “I was 13, but I looked about nine!” she laughs.

Indeed, Nikki seemed an impossibly small figure when the world saw her skip to the centre of the Olympic Stadium, in front of the 110, 000-strong crowd filling the venue, and the 3.8 billion watching her on televisions around the globe.

“It still feels like yesterday,” says Nikki, now 23. “I remember every detail of every position I had.”

Nikki stayed tight-lipped about being chosen over 12, 000 others for the role as Hero Girl in the ceremony, which helped Australia take the world by surprise when she soared through the sky. The little girl swimming among the fluoro sea creatures became one of the most fondly remembered moments.

“Everything was on target, despite the fact there was such a lot that could have gone wrong!” Nikki says, with relief that’s obvious even 10 years after her adventure. “The only small thing was a jellyfish bumped into me in the sky and I thought, ‘what’s that doing there? That’s never been there before!’”

But when Nikki’s feet left the earth, the young performer couldn’t have known she’d touch down in a world very different from the one she had left behind. Her flawless performance saw her become Australia’s new media darling. The instant she returned to earth, her young life changed forever.

“It was insane,” Nikki says. “I did my first ever interview at 6am the next morning, and from then on it never stopped.” Reporters from all over the world wanted to meet Nikki. “When I got home there was international media already camped out,” she recalls. “There were people everywhere at my house – on the front lawn, in my bedroom, in the lounge room.”

Over the past 10 years, the spotlight that shone on Nikki has never faded. The performer is now capitalising on her expertise by running a dance school and talent agency in Sydney – Dance @ Nikki Webster and Talent @ Nikki Webster – where she helps other kids realise their dreams.

Stroking the dress, Nikki says, “There’s a replica in a museum, but I keep the real one in a box. People always say I should have it framed, but I never have. It meant so much to so many people. It’s amazing for me to know I can still get it out and hold it in my hands.”

Source: Woman’s Day
View scans of this article

“I’m excited, I’m nervous, I’m you know worried about what’s gonna happen with it, but most of all it’s just great to finally be out and for people to be able to download it and start getting feedback.”

On the feedback: “It’s mixed and it was always gonna be mixed and I’m not gonna lie and say, ‘Oh my god it’s all positive!’ But I think we’re definitely breaking some ground. People are really listening to the track for what it is. It’s been four years since anybody’s really heard me sing and I think this track does what it’s supposed to: it showcases my vocals great and shows that I’ve progressed and I’m a pop diva, pop artist now! So it’s good fun.”

“I’m so lucky to have a huge gay following, and you know, one of my dreams is to get a float at Mardi Gras so [laughs] I think it’s great, and I think the great thing about doing pop-dance is you can get different DJ’s to remix the track and it sounds completely different. So I really wanna hit the clubs and start performing this track. I can’t wait to tour.”

Looking back on the young girl that appeared in the opening ceremony, what advice would you give to her if you could talk to her now?

“I’d probably say, ‘Surround yourself with good people.’ And… yeah, I guess I’d say that but I don’t think I’d say anything else because I think the great thing about what I did was the fact that I wasn’t media fed. It was innocent. Everything I did was innocent. There was no, I’ve said it before, there was no handbook, there was no ‘everybody knew what they were gonna do, this is stage-by-stage’. We were just flying, like we had sunglasses on, no-one knew what was coming next. ‘Okay, they called, let’s do that, let’s do that! Okay cool, that sounds fun, why don’t we do that?’ And we just went with it. If we made mistakes, we did, but I don’t live with regret, so I probably would just say, ‘Go out and have a good time and do what you do best and entertain.’”

What do you think about songs like Strawberry Kisses now, these days?

I love it! I wish I wrote the track! [laughs] The great thing about it is it doesn’t matter how old people are, they still remember the chorus, and to me that’s a great sign of a pop song. I can be out with my friends and young guys will come up and they’ve had a few drinks and they’ll be singing Strawberry Kisses, and yeah they don’t know all the words, but they know the tune, and it amazes me! I’m like, ‘How do you know the tune? It so wouldn’t have been cool when you were 14, 15 to like Nikki Webster.’ So, I mean they’re taking the piss out of me when they’re singing it to me but I kinda get in there and sing it with them and go, ‘This is great!’ So I think it’s one of those songs that has been passed down in generations for some reason. At my dance studio I have five year olds singing it to me and they weren’t even born, so it’s obviously been passed down. It’s a good song.”

Source: Take40.com
Watch the video here!