JACKIE EPSTEIN<\/p>\n
Nikki Webster was a 13-year-old girl wanting to make the country proud when she starred in the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
She ended up becoming a child star after the show that stopped a nation with more than 10 million viewers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t about being famous, it wasn\u2019t anything that crossed my mind,\u2019\u2019 Webster said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy main thing on the night, was I was a musical theatre performer so making sure people enjoyed watching it. I didn\u2019t really think about people at home watching and as a 13-year-old girl I wanted to make my mum and dad proud and it was all about making my country proud and the privilege I had of being an Aussie.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought that\u2019s nice and then it\u2019ll be over. I never thought I\u2019d be lucky to have a career.\u201d<\/p>\n
Webster went onto become a singer with a hit, Strawberry Kisses, a musical theatre performer and a contestant on The Masked Singer last year. She never tried her luck overseas despite having opportunities.<\/p>\n
At the closing ceremony she spent time with the likes of Kylie Minogue, Paul Hogan and John Farnham.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember it like it was yesterday,\u2019\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best thing about being recognised is that everyone is so positive and they remember where they were and what it meant.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of stories connect with the Olympics and I love to hear about that. It\u2019s pretty cool to have people to share that with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Webster said the highlight of the night for her was the flying, but also learning so much about Aboriginal history and culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cI watched it back with my daughter (Skylah, 6) and all the memories came flooding back,\u2019\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI run dance studios now and that\u2019s my passion to provide in that creative space and give back to performers. And hopefully they can follow their dreams like I was lucky enough to.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first of Seven\u2019s Olympic specials, Towards Tokyo: The Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games Sydney 2000 Uncovered, airs Tuesday night July 28.<\/em><\/p>\n Source: Herald Sun<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" JACKIE EPSTEIN Nikki Webster was a 13-year-old girl wanting to make the country proud when she starred in the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony 20 years ago. She ended up becoming a child star after the show that stopped a nation with more than 10 million viewers. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t about being famous, it wasn\u2019t anything that … Continue reading<\/a>Nikki Webster reflects 20 years after shooting to fame in Sydney Olympics<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-66"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1955,"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions\/1955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}