She stole our hearts flying above the crowd at the Olympics opening ceremony. Now Nikki Webster is trying life as a poppet pop star. By Claire Halliday.

Sunday. 1.15pm. At Highpoint Shopping Centre in the midst of Melbourne’s suburban sprawl, I’m due to meet Nikki Webster for an interview in the middle of her publicity tour. But she’s proving hard to pin down. “Nikki’s just backstage getting ready,” says Nicole Hart, the publicity manager from Nikki’s record company. She’s going to ask Nikki if I can come back and say hello. She disappears.

Pre-pubescent girls line the cattle-pen-like barricades designed to keep them in orderly control. A security guard says they’ve been here since before 11am. Little girls with freckles, floppy fringes, pink polar fleece and Spice Girls T-shirts.

Ross Dicesare and Sophie Gatward from radio station Fox-FM take the stage to hype the throng into a pre-Nikki giggle-fest.

By way of proving Nikki’s apparently meteoric rise, the Fox crew tell the gathering about the recent Jeans for Genes fundraising day (for the Children’s Medical Research Foundation) where a pair of her jeans, painted by artist David Boyd, sold for $22,500. In company with Jennifer Aniston and Kylie Minogue, Nikki’s pants fetched the highest bid. The fans scream out that they know purple is her favourite colour and that water is her favourite drink. Some seem disappointed by the announcement that Nikki will only be signing album covers and that the posters they’re clutching in Chupa Chup sticky palms (Nikki’s favourite flavours are cherry and pineapple) may not get a look-in.

“She really wants to sign albums,” Dicesare says. “That’s what she’s here to do – launch her new album.”

Which, by the way, is selling just nearby. No fancy display, just a girl in a Target uniform manning a stand stacked with copies of Follow Your Heart and a crudely scrawled message on a sheet: “$21.45 album with poster”.

When Nicole Hart reappears, it’s with bad news. My request to meet Nikki has been temporarily rebuffed. Nicely. “She’s in the zone,” Hart shrugs. Unfamiliar with record company jargon, I translate it to mean a pre-performance single-mindedness, unable to be disrupted by a media presence. I must wait until later. The anticipation is killing me.

By way of apology, I am introduced to a Webster senior – Nikki’s dad, Mark, 41. He’s easy to miss at first. Just another face in the crowd with a video camera at the ready. Then you recognise the same fine features and diminutive stature.

He’s an electrician by trade, on holiday leave to ensure that his only daughter (there is a son, Scott, 16) is being looked after. Too young to travel without a chaperone, Nikki is usually accompanied by Mark or mum Tina, 43. Ah, the mother. As well as shepherding her little girl to auditions, agents, dance classes and singing lessons, she runs two child-care centres where Nikki still helps out most afternoons after finishing her own school day at the McDonald College (a performing arts school).

Tina Webster is a definite candidate for stage mom but her non-presence on this tour provides a decent alibi. She’s obviously also a normal mother looking after her everyday responsibilities. And there are reports that it was Nikki who insisted her parents seek out that talent-nurturing tuition.

So what’s with the video camera? Is Mark Webster making tapes to analyse, frame by frame, later on? Without a hint of guile, he flips his palm to show me the technology. “I’m always making copies to send to her grandparents back in England,” he smiles. “I like to get every performance so they don’t miss anything.”

2.03pm. Here’s Nikki. Yay! She bounces on stage in shimmering iridescent purple/blue and chunky silver platforms. She’ll tell me later that she designs her outfits and has them tailored especially. There’s an element of little girl playing dress-ups but, even in the decidedly unglamorous surrounds of the shopping centre, she seems to transcend it. I mean, love or hate the bubblegum beat, the kid can sing. Flanked by two dance class friends, Nikki bops her ambitious heart out. The trio perform Strawberry Kisses, followed by the second single, Depend On Me. Minutes later, it’s all over and she disappears behind a lavender curtain. The official signing table is moved forward by a security team. There’s another plug by the DJ to buy the CD – “in time to get Nikki’s autograph”.

I approach Hart again. “She needs a couple of minutes,” Hart says. But then, faster than you can sing Strawberry Kisses, I’m invited to the inner sanctum. On stage, she was paper-pale and thin. In the flesh, she seems even more so. Tiny, even. Her manager, Lisa Hamilton, 40, hovers nearby as I am first introduced to everyone else in the room. Most notably, Ross Fraser, 50, is the managing director of Gotham Records (distributed through BMG) and executive producer of Nikki’s solo debut. If there was ever a string-puller to be found, he’s the obvious choice. The Stock, Aitken and Waterman to Nikki’s Kylie?

Although, with his amiable grin, shaved head and black leather, he seems too unashamedly in awe of the Nikki Webster phenomenon. The night before, at Sydney’s Imax theatre, the first Follow Your Heart launch party was held and he’s still unnerved. He holds his at hand hip height and laughs. “I’ve never done a launch with all these little kids hanging around.” But is it just cleverly manufactured pop music for the masses with Nikki as the production-line front-person?

“I grew up on the Beatles – that’s pop music, too. I love pop music,” Fraser says. Of Nikki, he says, “she’s a pretty cluey kid”. Of course, she didn’t write the songs herself but there was a fair chunk of “creative control”. And it was Nikki, Fraser says, who made the final decision about which record company’s contract she chose to sign. “It’s an old-fashioned word but she is an entertainer. She’s a trouper. Nikki has a desire to do well.”

What if she wants to change her image as she blooms into a teenager proper? Will that moment come when she changes from a smiling, parent-loving child to a surly black-clad teenager who no longer wants to attend that function at Auntie’s house? When Kylie and Olivia are traded in, at an angst-ridden IS, for The Strokes? Will the record company cope?

“We can’t get her to do what she doesn’t want to,” says Fraser. “We’ll all watch her grow up. When she does the next CD, she’ll be 16 and it will be a different Nikki.” Nikki’s still on stage signing autographs when I leave. When a keen dad from the audience crouches to table height while his little girl is getting her CD signed, Nikki leans towards him for as long as it takes. A real trouper.

The next day, 3pm. In the offices of Mix-101.1 FM. I’m early and Nikki and entourage are rock-star late. The receptionist flips through her appointment book and checks the highlighted pink stripes with a blank expression. “Where are they from?” I nearly say “Sydney”. I nearly blurt out that Nikki was Hero Girl at the Olympics. The one who flew. Reality kicks in. “BMG.” “Oh, they’re not here yet.”

Then they arrive – manager Hamilton, publicist Hart, Nikki and her dad. Announcer Simon Diaz introduces himself before escorting Nikki to the booth where she will pre-record a short interview and announcements of the evening’s Top Seven At Seven. “This is drive so we’ve got to pretend it’s night-time,” he warns her. With an audience out there somewhere, Nikki is geared up and switched on. She remembers the relevant dates of releases and performances without a stumble as her legs dangle back and forth from the swivel chair without quite reaching the ground.

It’s familiar territory. The Olivia and Kylie story, the fact that her single’s video was reportedly one of the most expensive made in this country, talk of her role as Dorothy in the Wizard Of Oz. Outside the booth, her team flip through newspapers.

Nearly two hours later, Nikki is a little late again. The venue is radioundercover.com, an online music site. Nikki’s here for an online chat with her fans. Paul Cashmere, 43, is supervising and offers to type Nikki’s responses. She refuses. Nicely. With delicate gold rings on her manicured nails, she can handle it herself. While dad waits in the wings, Hart sits behind Nikki and Hamilton sits behind the boffin sifting through the fan’s questions before sending them, on the computer network, to Nikki’s terminal. “I’d like to make sure we put the right sort of questions through to her,” Hamilton says. Asking which megastar Nikki counts among her close friends is, however, deemed acceptable. “Does that mean like Kylie?” She turns to her minders for approval before tapping away at the keyboard.

“That’s a pretty good one,” says Cashmere. Another question. “Do you and BMG have plans to release Follow Your Heart in the US (especially Mexico)?” “I would love to?” Nikki turns to Hart for the nod. “But we’ll have to wait and see what happens,” Hart adds.

Question: “If you could do a duet with someone, who would it be?” Hamilton is pushing a middle-of-the-road barrow, suggesting John Farnham and David Campbell. Nikki’s fingers pause before she eventually types Minogue and Farnham. “I was going to say Usher but…”
Question: “What’s the highest level of schooling you’ve reached?”
Hamilton is concerned that it sounds like Nikki has already dropped out in the name of fame and fortune. “You could say that you’re in year nine and you’re planning on continuing to HSC.” When asked to say what her favourite song to perform is, Nikki writes, without coaching, her current singles. “Oh, that’s good,” Hamilton gushes.
Question: “Favourite place to eat on the road?”
No hesitation. “Room service!”
Question: “Fave TV show?”
Answer: “Home and Away, All Saints and Changing Rooms.”

Suddenly, there’s time for only one more question. “When did you first perform in front of people?” She thinks for a moment before typing details of a talent quest aged four or five. “That was good,” Hamilton says. “It covered a lot.”

Nikki, she says, “thinks fast on her feet.” As a professionally aware self-promoter, Nikki must be a dream client. Hamilton says later that an agent only gets such a client, “with unique star quality”, once in a lifetime and that “Nikki is mine”.

“I don’t mean ‘mine’,” she corrects. “I’m very lucky that she’s come my way.” Then Nikki moves into another room to be interviewed for an online video interview with Cashmere. Hamilton, Hart and Nikki’s father watch intently on a monitor.

All agree that the chemistry occurring before them is pushing their rising star to a supernova level. “When the interviewer’s good, her answers are better,” Hamilton says. Hart is more direct. “Some people ask really dumb questions.”

11am. In Hart’s hotel room at The Sebel, Nikki is seated neatly on the couch. It’s finally my turn to interview her and as an interview subject, she’s both easy and difficult. Confidence-wise, she’s clearly beyond her years and in terms of smiles, she has a million of them.

Definite answers are delivered quickly and precisely. But grasp as I might for any sense of ironic “maybe”, I couldn’t find it.

Question: “Has the single’s success surprised you?”
Nikki: “It certainly has. For the first pop single, it’s gone amazingly well. To debut at number two and stay there for eight weeks – it’s been amazing. Thanks to everyone for supporting it.”

Question: “What were your expectations?”
Nikki: “I do music because I love it and I love making my fans smile and stuff like that but I’m just taking it as it comes and hoping for the best.”

I ask her about young girls’ body image problems and whether she feels if the visual that she portrays could be potentially insidious. She admits to being grateful that she’s short but says she eats “everything any other children eat”.

Then she says she believes luck played a part in the decision to cast her for the Olympics ceremony. “Well, I think it was luck. Some people think it was because I had what they were looking for.”

When the topic turns to money, she simply shrugs. “It just goes into a bank account for me for when I’m older, if I want to buy a house or go to uni. “I have my manager and my parents and stuff like that. I don’t do this for money. I do it for love. I’d do it for free if that’s what it came down to.”

When the responses to questions continue to be a little too sweet, I thank her for her time and watch her prepare for the accompanying photo shoot. Lisa Hamilton enters moments later and I interview her instead. Maybe she can answer the question: who is actually running the Nikki Webster show?

“I always defer to her parents and they talk to Nikki,” Hamilton says. “Because Nikki’s a minor, I’m very sensitive to the fact that her parents need to be involving her in the decision. I don’t want Nikki to wake up when she’s 18 or 19 and say, ‘Nobody gave me control’. That won’t happen.”

Fifteen minutes of fame. Given that Nikki has had more than an average dose of success before this latest batch of recognition (stage roles in Les Miserables and The Sound Of Music and a spot in former child-star Michael Jackson’s History tour of Australia in 1997). Our Nikki might have already beaten the clock.

Poppet or puppet, Nikki doesn’t seem concerned. And if the wave does dribble into shore eventually, she says that she’s enjoyed the ride. But is there the faintest scent of naive desperation beneath that photograph-ready smile? An irksome feeling that, if the music-buying public turn against her next time around, she might not really understand?

“She’s really loved,” Hamilton tells me proudly. And Nikki clearly loves being loved. I just hope that, like so many first loves, it doesn’t end in heartbreak. Even if I am still unsure whether she’s pawn or queen-in-the-making.

Already checked out in preparation for a later return flight to Sydney, Nikki and her father are waiting in the hotel’s downstairs foyer. There is the obligatory round of “nice to meet you”.

“So, you’re going to see Molly now?” My question is directed at Nikki’s back as she makes a beeline for her hire car en route to Molly Meldrum and a taping for Foxtel’s arts and entertainment show, Premiere. She smiles, nods and keeps walking. My interview, I assume, is definitely over. Hart completes the answer by saying “it’s very exciting”.

“Have you met Molly before?” I ask it of Nikki to engage her in any snippet of normal conversation that doesn’t tote the PR line. Anything to ease my worries that she is being robbed of a normal childhood and is on the potentially rock-infested path trod by so many former child stars before her.

I get little more than a grunt. No eye contact. Hurrah! Maybe there’s nothing really to worry about. Maybe Nikki Webster simply is a normal teenager, after all.

Source: Sunday Life
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