Tag: tall poppy syndrome

Do we delight in bringing down stars?

Posted on Author Categories 2013 No Comments on Do we delight in bringing down stars?

Do we like to bring down tall poppies? Seal has backtracked on his Twitter rant. Nikki Webster, AJ Rochester and Peter Ford discuss.

[Transcript only includes Nikki’s part of the discussion.]

DAVID KOCH: Nikki, you came into the public eye at a very young age. You were a girl at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics, you starred. Do you feel as though the media then tried to tear you down?

NIKKI WEBSTER: Well, you know, in this situation I don’t think it’s tall poppy syndrome, I think what it is is what Joel did was illegal and you know, the actions were taken accordingly. I think the tall poppy syndrome is where in Australia we put artists up, they become very successful, and then we try and knock down successful artists who are trying to make a career out of it, through the media because it sells papers.

So I don’t think that this is a true representation of tall poppy syndrome at all. I think what they did to me, as a fifteen-year-old girl, is a little bit of bullying and the tall poppy syndrome. And you know, we put these artists up on a pedestal and then when they get too big, and they’re not selling papers ’cause they’re too clean-cut, we knock them down and try and hurt them, and try and affect their outcome.

DAVID: How hurtful has it been for you, and do you actually regret now doing that role in the Olympics?

NIKKI: I don’t regret anything at all. I represented my country and I’m so proud to have had that opportunity. I don’t regret anything, and what I try and teach my children that I teach at my studios is you’ve gotta be the triple threat, you’ve gotta be strong and you’ve gotta take the good and the bad – you can’t just take the good.

But it did hurt me as a young girl, to be reading things from people that I thought I had a good relationship with. But since then I’ve had a lot of media personalities come and apologize and say, you know, you were the punchline of everyone’s jokes and we thought it was appropriate at the time, but looking back, as a 15-year-old girl, it’s not. It’s a media attack. So I have had a lot of apologies which I’m very grateful for.

MELISSA DOYLE: Yeah, good!

Source: Sunrise
Video: YouTube

Child Stars – The Kerri-Anne Show

Posted on Author Categories 2011, Transcripts No Comments on Child Stars – The Kerri-Anne Show

kerrianne_02aug11_054

Kerri-Anne was joined by former child star Nikki Webster on the back of her advice for AGT contestant Jack Vidgen.

Kerri-Anne: Well he’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!

Source: Kerri-Anne
Watch the video here. View screencaps here.

Child stars cut down

Posted on Author Categories 2011 No Comments on Child stars cut down

By David Richardson

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

Webster’s warning

Posted on Author Categories 2011 1 Comment on Webster’s warning

Former teen star Nikki Webster has issued a warning to 14-year-old Australia’s Got Talent singing sensation Jack Vidgen.

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

Why is Nikki our national punchline?

Posted on Author Categories 2009 Comments Off on Why is Nikki our national punchline?

Nikki Webster’s BACK with a new single – OK, control yourself…

“Really!? Why?” asks my partner, who’s laughing as I tell him that today I’ll be interviewing former child star Nikki Webster. This reaction has been pretty standard, really. You’re probably laughing too, right? Let’s be honest; we’ve made a national punchline out of the poor girl since she hit puberty. So, where is she now? Back in Sydney after a stint in LA recording her new album, Nikki now spends her time as director of her dance school, Dance @ Nikki Webster, working the gay nightclub circuit with a sexed up remix of Strawberry Kisses, and planning her musical comeback which will hit the airwaves this summer.

A household face and name at just 13 when she starred in the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, “Brand Nikki” soon went into overdrive. Within two years she’d signed a contract with BMG releasing her debut album, Follow Your Heart (featuring the infamous Strawberry Kisses), launched a tween makeup range, snagged a clothing line for five- 10-year-olds through Kmart and starred as Dorothy in the Australian stage production of The Wizard of Oz. Somewhere in there, Nikki’s public image underwent a metamorphosis – going from cute to spectacularly uncool.

“I don’t think I ever saw a positive story after I was 14,” says Nikki, now 21, as we sit in the lounge room of her family home, where she’s living with her parents and older brother Scott. “I’m at a point now where I laugh at it – people are still talking about me, that has to be good!” she jokes as she tells me of a gag at her expense at the 2008 ARIA Awards. “I think it’s funny and I laugh it off, but if I look back it has made me quite insecure. I think in the long-term it has created a false sense of who I am. Now that I’m older and going out I’ll meet people and they say, ‘Oh! I had the completely wrong impression of you!’ Every time I meet someone I have to break down a wall so they’ll accept me,” she says.

From bad press to worse

In her mid teens the recording contract was nearing its end. “Kids at school would ask, ‘So, what are you doing now your career is over?'” While Nikki believed she had more to give the entertainment industry, she struggled to find her new place in it as an adolescent. “Suddenly, Barbie magazine didn’t want to put me on the cover,” she says of the tween mag she had previously fronted three times. “I asked who was on the cover that month and they told me it was Paris Hilton – it was right around the time her porno come out. They said I was too ‘nice.'” Nikki’s management advised her to disappear for a while and come back sexy. “I wanted to fill the gap, but they didn’t know how to market me.” The gap Nikki refers to is the void between child star and sex symbol, currently being filled by the likes of High School Musical stars Ashley Tisdale and Vanessa Hudgens.

If at first you don’t succeed…

Despite not seeing herself as sexy, Nikki accepted an offer from FHM to star in a raunchy photo shoot to celebrate her 18th birthday. She saw it as a cheeky coming-of-age move, but the public were weirded out seeing the “Little girl from the Olympics” in lingerie. Again, she encountered ridicule when the pre-Photoshoped images were released by email. Her 21st birthday would be no different. Radio hosts Hamish & Andy played a practical joke on unsuspecting C-grade celebs, posing as Nikki’s publicist and inviting them to her OK! Magazine birthday bash for a fee. Nikki finally cracked and called the radio station, Austereo, but in a bungle was connected to Triple M’s confused Wil & Lehmo whom she berated live on air. “So, you thought you’d take the piss the whole afternoon…” The rent-a-crowd blooper hit the blogosphere and, predictably, we pissed ourselves.

What’s so funny, anyway?

Whether it’s due to tall poppy syndrome, jealousy from a generation of kids who once wished they were her, or public irritation at her refusal to be “cool”, is unclear. Sitting here on her mum’s couch, Nikki is sweet and polite. She talks passionately about her dance school and her role mentoring the kids who hope to follow in her footsteps. She even has the time of day for comedians who’ve used her name for cheap laughs. “Some of them come up and apologise [when we cross paths]. I just tell them I appreciate [it],” she says. Not Rove McManus, though. “If we’re ever in the same room he runs away from me. I think he feels bad, or maybe he thinks I’m going to have a go at him.”

No matter your opinion of Nikki, she has built a successful business at the age of 21 and, despite constant ridicule, and still laugh it off when dickheads come up to her singing Strawberry Kisses at the pub. This summer, Nikki releases the first single off her new album. “I’m happy with [it],” she says. “I know there’s going to be controversy and horrible stories, but I can be humble and… laugh about it. And then there are the moments on stage where I think, ‘Yeah, I can handle this.'”

Caelia Corse

Source: Cosmopolitan
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All Grown Up

Posted on Author Categories 2008 Comments Off on All Grown Up

From the outside, child stardom is a parade of movie premieres, magazine covers and days off school. But what does it feel like from the inside? Christine Sams meets the kids who outgrew the role.

Kate Ritchie had been appearing on Home And Away for more than five years when someone moved in close behind her at a Sydney train station. Ritchie was only 14, but she still remembers the open menace of the fellow teenager. “I got off the train, a girl followed me and she thought it might be funny to tip Coca-Cola all over me,” she says.

It wasn’t the first time Ritchie had been bullied as she travelled home from school. Since the age of eight, she had grown up on a prime-time TV show and become used to regular feelings of unease. “It was never the kids I went to school with,” says Ritchie, now 30, who retired from Home And Away last year. “It was everybody else.”

To other children, perhaps, child stardom looks glamorous – a gateway to fun, privilege and skipping school. But those who have been on the inside tell a real-life story of highs and lows. And even when a poppy is not so tall in Australia, it seems we still like to cut it down.
Continue reading All Grown Up

The girl who flew too high

Posted on Author Categories 2006, Featured Comments Off on The girl who flew too high

At the Sydney Olympics she was the most famous girl in Australia. How did teenager Nikki Webster become an object of ridicule, and what does her treatment say about us, asks Larry Writer.

Last time we looked, Nikki Webster wasn’t responsible for the war in Iraq, or the hike in petrol prices. In fact, there is no evidence she has ever wronged a soul. Most agree she is blessed with talent, spirit and ambition. So why are people saying such terrible things about her? Why did Rove McManus and Eddie McGuire feel it necessary to make jokes about her virginity on national TV? Why does a gossip columnist she’s never met defend her frequent attacks on the teenager because “there’s something about her that’s irritating”? And why would The Sydney Morning Herald say last month, when reporting on possible new girlfriends for James Packer: “Around the dining tables of Sydney’s harbour front mansions all sorts of names have been suggested as potential Parker mates, ranging from the sublime (Nicole Kidman) to the ridiculous (Nikki Webster)”? Want to take a shot at Webster? Get in line, folks.

Her star turn at the Sydney Olympic Games Opening Ceremony, when she soared and sang 30m above Stadium Australia, made Webster, at 13, a household name. But Hero Girl has never flown quite so high again. She finds herself today without a record label, striving for an image and music that will propel her to new phases of her career.

It’s not that she lacks fans. Last year, when Dancing with the Stars judge Todd McKenney eliminated her by awarding her 1 out of 10 for her attempt at the tango, the Seven Network switchboard, says Webster, “went into meltdown. People were so angry. And it wasn’t just devotees. [Fellow contestant, actor and towering ex-rugby league champ] Ian Roberts went ballistic at Todd. He looked like he was going to punch him.”

Pundits are divided over the causes of her stuttering trajectory since the heady days of late 2000: overexposure, a saccharine image, fans’ changing tastes, poor advice and songs. Yet one factor they all agree has helped bring her down is the virulent derision she has copped from sections of the public and the media.

Continue reading The girl who flew too high

Webster’s warning

Posted on Author Categories 2006 Comments Off on Webster’s warning

SYDNEY Olympics teen performer Nikki Webster has warned next week’s young opening ceremony stars to get thick skins in preparation for the knocks to come.

Webster says Australia turned on her after the 2000 Games and she thinks she’ll never outlive the stigma.

“For a 13-year-old who’s just represented their country . . . to be knocked by your country wasn’t the nicest thing,” she said yesterday.

“Hopefully Australia has learnt from my experience and learnt how much it damages and hurts young children.

“Hopefully it’s all over because it is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

Webster, now 18, sang and soared before a TV audience of billions at the 2000 Olympics opening ceremony.

She says the Olympic cauldron was barely cold before the sniping began.

“I’d gone from over-the-top nice comments like ‘She’s our hero’ to the total opposite.

“People didn’t want to get to know me and give me a fair go.

“It doesn’t matter if I’m 45 years old, there’s always going to be that stigma.”

In 2000, after the Games, Webster sang at the Melbourne Cup and was profiled on 60 Minutes. Since then, she has had one hit single, in 2001, and seven others that missed the top 10.

A suggestive photo shoot for men’s magazine FHM caused a stir a month before her 18th birthday.

Webster urged children in the ceremony to cherish their moment in the spotlight.

“I still lay there at night thinking about what it was like walking out in the middle of the arena and looking around at everyone.

“Get out and have fun. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Source: The Daily Telegraph

Have we been fair to Nikki?

Posted on Author Categories 2002 Comments Off on Have we been fair to Nikki?

Nikki Webster is not about to be cut down by the tall-poppy syndrome. She has a burgeoning showbusiness career to get on with, reports Anne Crawford.

The Wizard of Oz rehearsal is set to begin in a large hall in Prahran. Toto the dog has had a final brush. Artistic directors position themselves on long tables facing the action. All eyes are trained on the slight teenager with the big voice.

Nikki Webster, the girl who flew at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics as the world watched, is playing Dorothy. Forget what you might have read about her success since, what you see is a small, pale girl with big brown eyes and strawberry blonde hair. Irrepressibly perky, bubbling with self-confidence. Wearing hip sters and a midriff, like any number of other teens outside in Chapel Street. Sort of.

During breaks from acting, she stoops to play with Toto or gravitates towards Bert Newton who plays the Wizard, chatting easily with the veteran performer. Webster’s face lights up constantly. She clasps her hands as she giggles. She apologises if she fluffs a line (which is rare) and follows directions eagerly. She is never late for rehearsal and never comes unprepared, says Newton, who first worked with Webster when she was six. The cast, apparently, have given her the thumbs up. No one has a harsh word to say about her.
Continue reading Have we been fair to Nikki?

Small Poppy

Posted on Author Categories 2001, Featured, The Wizard of Oz Comments Off on Small Poppy

Nikki Webster aims to silence her critics with The Wizard of Oz

Nikki Webster is being swept off her feet. Two weeks into rehearsals of The Wizard of Oz, choreographer Kelly Aykers is nutting out a complicated dance number that sees the pocket-size Dorothy spun from partner to partner when one’s hands slip and Webster is flung into the air. She’s caught just before hitting the deck, but everyone gets a fright. “Be very careful with that young girl, please,” shouts Aykers over the piano that plays on in the rehearsal rooms at Gala studios in Sydney. “She’s very precious.” In fact, that this production is opening at all is due solely to the star power of this 14-year-old schoolgirl. “If she had said no, we wouldn’t have done it,” says Oz co-producer John Frost of the $6 million show, which opens on Nov 24 in Sydney before touring Melbourne and Brisbane early next year. “It has been done especially for her.”

Such high praise is fuel for the growing band of knockers who delight in making her the butt of public jibes – The Chaser satirical team has even included a Nikki Webster dartboard in The Chaser Annual. “Those of us who saw [the Olympic Opening Ceremony] will never forget her saccharine-sweet delivery, annoyingly precocious poise and overall utter vomituosness,” says co-editor Julian Morrow. But Webster isn’t letting it get to her. “I never thought my dream would come true so early,” marvels the polite and polished performer, who soared to fame as the “Hero Girl” of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Sydney 2000 Olympics. “If there’s pressure there, she’s not showing it,” says Frost, 49. “She’s a real pro.”

Continue reading Small Poppy