LITTLE Nikki Webster is immediately identifiable to nearly every Australian. Put her before an audience – of a dozen or a billion – and she sings her heart out. Put her in front of a photographer, and she’s all smiles and big, brown eyes. Happy to oblige. Tilt your head. Sure. Look that way. Sure. Smile… well, just try to stop her.

She’s thrilled to be recognised in the street, to be asked to sign autographs and pose for happy snaps. The PR machine has coached Nikki well. Every question receives a positive, happy response, but her nervous, girlish giggles reveal a little shyness.

And privately? She’s probably just a normal 13-year-old kid. She loves shopping for clothes, listening to music, horse riding, seeing her friends, playing with her maltese-cross dogs.

But Nikki is already a Very Big Star who has signed movie and album deals, appeared as a cover girl, sung to a worldwide audience and calls Kylie Minogue a friend.
Continue reading Nikki’s dream time

Olympic Opening Ceremony star Nikki Webster will cap off a great year with Carols In The Domain, writes ADRIAN SCARDILLI.

Carols In The Domain airs on Saturday, Channel 7, 8.30pm.

MENTION the name Nikki Webster and immediately scenes of the Olympic Opening Ceremony come to mind.

The pint-sized star, who stole the show by flying effortlessly around the Olympic Stadium, will be ending her year with a performance at Carols In the Domain.

And although most people won’t realise it, this is Webster’s third performance at the Carols.

“Yeah, I have done it before,” she said, not sounding in the least bit like a hardened show biz veteran.

“It is fun and exciting. I was there in 1997 with Toni Pearen and last year as part of the cast from The Sound Of Music with Lisa McCune. I was so excited to be there last year. Just getting out there in front of all those people, even if they didn’t know me.”
Continue reading Still flying high

POP singers can’t fight the trappings of fame even when they’re only 13 years old.

Pint-sized Olympic sensation Nikki Webster was enjoying her first serenade from a male singer in the Queen Street Mall yesterday, when a bystander yelled “What about Aaron, Nikki?” Yes, Webster’s already having to deny rumours about a romance with American pop star Aaron Carter.

A true professional, Webster talked through a cluster of security officers to young autograph hunters keen to catch their first real-life glimpse of the kid who wowed the world at the Sydney Games.

“I’d like to write my own songs, yeah,” she nodded. “I like a range of music. I’m an all-round performer. I’d like to be in movies and theatre too.”

Her grandparents, who are travelling with her, watched with tears in their eyes.

“It’s nice to see them,” she smiled. “They’re visiting from London.”

Her fame looks certain to skyrocket with an album on John Farnham’s record label, a cover on Barbie magazine, a Christmas train tour, and a Carols by Candlelight gig with Vanessa Amorosi and Olivia Newton-John.

Yesterday, Webster made a promotional appearance for Jager Cosmetics’ It’s a Girl Thing line — giving a spirited performance in the mall.

Jacinta Koch

Source: Courier Mail (via Aaron Carter Aricles)

The darling of the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies still has to clean her bedroom

Barely an hour after giving a performance of a lifetime, tousle-haired Nikki Webster was curled up, fast asleep in her bed.

No late-night celebrations for this talented 13-year-old. Nikki needed her shut-eye, after all. There were chores to be done around her Croydon Park home in Sydney’s western suburbs.

“I had to clean my room and it’s my job to collect the dog droppings in the backyard,” she laughs. “I’ve also had to catch up with my studies, because I’ve been rather busy doing other things.”

Nikki is, of course, referring to her starring roles in the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies. In the space of a few hours, in the opening ceremony, she became the most famous teen in the world – her Deep Sea Dreaming sequence with Djakapurra Manyarryun winning the hearts of four billion viewers around the globe.

Now, the bubbly youngster can’t go anywhere without people asking, “Are you the little girl who was in the opening ceremony? Can I have an autograph??

“I don’t think I’m a star,” she says, sitting on the couch, petting her dog Star, a poodle-maltese terrier cross. “I just love to sing and act. My brother Scott and I are always singing and dancing at home in front of Mum and Dad,” adds Nikki, who sometimes pretends to be her favourite singer Olivia Newton-John. “They get annoyed if we start up just before we’re about to sit down for dinner!”
Continue reading The most famous teen in the world

Johannesburg – The movie Vanilla Gorilla, to be filmed here and to star the Australian songstress and actress Nikki Webster is sure to put South Africa on the map.

Variety reported Oz Moppet Webster Goes Ape For Kleiser while The Hollywood Reporter reported, more sedately, that Webster Carries Torch For Kleiser On Indie Vanilla. So let’s get all the credits correct.

The movie’s to be directed by Randal Kleiser who, in Variety’s parlance, “helmed” Grease, Honey I Blew Up The Kid, White Fang, The Blue Lagoon among others. The producers are Normandi Brown, Tony Sloman and Craig Gardner. The executive director is Sam Kute, and co-producers are T.J Mancini and Erika Brannan. Myron Nash will line produce. Anyone missing? No. Right. The South African connection is Gardner, who also wrote the script.

Since he happens to live just up the road, one had to dash off to his house rightaway to find out more about the movie. Yep, he’s excited. But first something about Gardner. From Los Angeles, he came to South Africa some twenty years ago and starred in a stage play about outer space beings that he’d rather forget, I’m sure. Continue reading Vanilla Gorilla