Australian Idol star’s spiral into addiction: Kate DeAraugo Pt.1

The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see a side of life the average persons never exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw

No worries Garth, thanks for having me. It's a bit of a random one for me, but I like it. I'm excited for what we're going to chat about.

Well, I should have thought about the name of the podcast before we started rolling with I Catch Killers, because everyone looks a little bit suspicious. They ye get an invite onto that. Okay, tell me, have you ever killed anyone? Did you say?

But recently? Not recently?

So we're good, all right, Okay. I tried to get that one that would make a great viewing if I could get a confession Confession Life. Hey, it is a true crime podcast, but we've had so many people on the podcast that their life has gone off track because of drugs and just in prepping for the podcast Heroes having a look at the figures and they're a couple of years old. But I think it would pretty much be the same that in New South Wales I'm talking here.

And you know, I actually interviewed myself recently the ex governor of the prison system here in Victoria, and I asked her that question. I was like, how many people that come into the prison system do you think are driven by drugs and mental health or crime?

First?

Like what comes first? The chicken or the egg?

And I can't remember the exact percentages that she gave me, but like she said, majority of them are driven by some kind of drug related offense or mental health that's landed them there, and.

Quite often a combination of the two, which is a terrible cocktail. I've found with people that have got into drugs where it's impacted on their life, invariably it starts. I've had a lot of people say, well, that's for the other guys to get addicted. I can just put my toe in the water and I'll be fine. I can pull out whenever I want to, and before they

I've never met a true addict. And I say true addict because I think there's people that get addicted to drugs that are situational and I've met and that can put the drugs down after a little bit of help or a couple of weeks away, you know, or whatever it might be, and get on and live a relatively normal life that might be able to have a drink or whatever. And then there's what I call true addicts.

Yeah, it's interesting how people find their way down that path. There was a quote in one of the many interviews that you've done, and I'll just read it out. It was back in two thousand and twenty three where you said, in the back of my mind, it was a story I told myself, I'm not an addict. I don't end up in those places. I come from a good home. But this shit doesn't give a fuck who you are. It doesn't care where you came from, who your mummies or daddies are, or what school you went to.

It doesn't.

Yeah, true true words.

It doesn't.

It doesn't care like if it can get, you know, and I say this and I share this, and because you know, I think so many people have this incredible preconceived ideas that addicts come from broken homes and you know, all of these really dramatic, awful backgrounds.

You know, but that wasn't that wasn't my case.

Like, you know, I came from a home that on paper looked like I should have grown up to be really normal, happy, healthy, balanced person girl in the world. And that just didn't you know, addiction didn't care about any of that stuff, but just it just didn't. And you know, I've seen over the years people come from all kinds of professions.

You know.

One of the biggest eye openers I remember, I was in rehabit I obviously won't use his name, but I was in reh had with this doctor and he was the most incredibly looking, smart human and on paper had absolutely everything that a person you think could want a need to be okay in this world. And he was the most traumatized, insecure, you know, addicted person that I'd ever met.

And it was such an eye opener for me. Addiction it doesn't it just doesn't care.

Yeah, it doesn't discriminate. Also, The fact is that people can function with it for a while before it catches them out, and by the time it's caught them out, their life's invariably fallen aparto.

Gone to ship.

By the time most people realize they're in strife, it's too late, you know what I mean.

People always say to me, why did you touch Ice? Why did you pick up eyes? You knew what would happen.

It's like, yeah, maybe, but like by the time I'd got to that point, it was too late. Like I was well and truly on my path of addiction, and I would have picked up anything that would have soothed and taken away that pain that I was feeling at that time.

It wouldn't have mattered what it was. But you know, Ice was just the one that brought me to my knees.

So by the time I got to that, like logic thinking and all of that sane processing that people that aren't on drugs do, was well and truly gone.

Out the door gone. You talk about your childhood, where did you grow up?

So I grew up in Bendigo, you know, in a house with a mom and dad, brother, sister, a beautiful extended family. You know, grandparents, all of that really beautiful stuff, you know, just it was filled with love. There was you know, my parents were still you know, up together until my mum left us. And you know, so I

Just something was always not right for me.

And break that down, what's that look like you're looking for something that other people seemed satisfied or you were looking for something that.

I just always and up until I guess I got recovery nearly eight years ago, I don't remember a time where I just didn't have this sense of I guess the best way to like impending doom, like something terrible was going to happen. Like I just lived in this state of fear and anxiety and that me Kate, little Kate as a five year old just wasn't right in her body and she needed to be somebody else to be okay.

And to be loved and to be accepted.

And I couldn't tell you where that came from, or where or the reasoning for that thinking that was just my reality and my addictive behavior. And this surprises a lot of people showed up way before drugs, way before drugs.

It just didn't.

It's just not as big and as scary and as dangerous as the words drugs. But like I used to use food in a really unhealthy, unmanageable way from like five year old. I used to steal it and lie and hide it needed in secret, in a shameful kind of way. And I guess as I grew up, those behaviors changed and shifted, you know, and that you know, as I got a bit older, it moved into latter real lot. But I've never done anything in that's not full on, you know. I've always done it to extremes,

That ever lived in the world. But we were moving in and.

You know, it's just everything was always so intense for me, and eventually, I guess when I ran into drugs after idol, that was the perfect storm.

Okay, So it's sort of you have that personality trade that was in your DNA that you were going to commit. You just weren't sure.

If I was on yeah, I was on yeah.

And look, that way of living life is an interesting way of living life. And some people navigate their way through life with that type of drive that yeah, they chase it and they commit one hundred you know, one hundred percent. A lot of those people are very successful. But it's just a cautionary tail, isn't it If that if that drive is pointed in the wrong direction? All help and break list.

My dad always used to say to me, if you say, Katy, if you could put ten percent of the effort that you put into using drugs into your life, you would be an incredibly successful human. And he was right, you know what I mean, He's all right, Like if just once I committed to something and I was lost in it, there was really no stopping me.

Okay, music, when did that become your become your passion?

Always? I grew up around music.

My granddad was an incredible singer, incredible tenor you know, he was offered to travel the world with the Pavrotti's and those kinds of singers, but he had he had he had five babies at home and he chose to stay home.

He was that kind of guy. And yeah, my house was just always filled with music.

You know, all my uncles and my dad played guitar and singing and it was just something that was always just a part of my world.

Right. You went on Australian Idol at eighteen, and this is a man sitting here saying I would get terrified if I had to do karaoke at two am and a drunken bar. What where did you get the confidence to at eighteen? Because I've watched the show and when you won it in two thousand and five, it was big. It was before all the PATV and everything else subscribers and that Australian Idol was watched by everyone was talking

I guess it was just it was something that I was good at and it's taken me a lot of years to be able to say that, and I still stumble over those words. But it was something that I was good at, and it just felt like the natural, Like my family encouraged me, my singing teacher encouraged me, like everybody sort of encouraged me to just go and give this show ago and I auditioned two years before that, both years before or I won. Yeah, and didn't get

That.

Was the only thing that I was really good at and that I felt comfortable to a degree doing and that people took me serious for was music.

So I just kind of felt like the thing to do.

Right. You had that confidence from the people around you, and you knew that you had had a skill set there. Okay, you were knocked back for the first two auditions. I would imagine that attacks your self esteem to a degree too. You roll up there, you think everyone around you has been telling you you're great, you could win this, and you rock up and they got.

Hyeah, no no deal. Yeah.

And I was sixteen the first time I auditioned, so you know, pretty vulnerable. But yeah, you know what, to be totally honest, I don't remember those times a lot. I as I said to you earlier, like I spent so much on my childhood and so much of those teenage years just so disgustingly uncomfortable in my skin and just riddled with so much anxiety that I almost felt

Is that because of what you've been through and that I suppose you shuffle your memories along and you've seen a lot more extreme since then. Is it? Where have you lost those memories? Because I I think, like you look back at they were formative years as a teenager and yeah, stepping into adulthood and you know what that journey you went on when you won Australian idol at eighteen, that was an incredible journey.

Absolutely, And you know, I've done all kinds of wonderful things since then, Like I you know, I got to travel through Europe with my family and we talk about it all the time and they go, do you remember this?

And you said you weren't comfortable with yourself at the time. What was that about? Where was that coming from? Look?

You know, I guess I grew up in those early two thousands where women's bodies were really judged, and it was okay to say what was reminiscing actually just yesterday about the Biggest Loser and the way it was okay to treat those people like the people and contestants on those shows, and it was just so disgusting. And you know, we were taught to believe that that heroin chic tiny little bodies was what perceived to be beautiful, and if

You know, it was so.

Important, and it was every bit, if not more important that you would look a certain way that you could sing.

You know, it was it was such a big deal.

And I grabbed onto that messaging and that storyline and it just became my core belief, you know what I mean. I just really truly believed if I didn't look a certain way, then I was I wasn't enough. And you know, I guess that got confirmed for me in the industry. And look, I don't blame anybody for that. It's just the way it was.

And it happened to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of other people you know what I mean.

But there were certain situations that happened in that time that just continued to confirm that belief system for me. So yeah, but you know, even from a little girl in school, I remember there was that popular group of girls that.

Were at school and I just always looked at them.

I was like, Oh, if I could just look like them and be like them and exist with them, then I'd be okay in the world.

So it's just alert behavior.

And it can be cruel, can't it. Those childhoods and one of being in with the cool gang, and yeah, it can be cruel. Okay. So when take you back two thousand and five, you auditioned for Australian Idol and you got all the way through. Take us back to those times, because your life changed dramatically from that moment you became a well i'd say an over night celebrity. But I know you've done a lot of work up to it. But what was the process of applying and then what did you have to do? Well?

I guess the first step was you had to turn up an audition with the thousands and there's no judges there, there's just producers behind the scenes.

You go in.

You sing a song, there's yes or no, pretty easy, as simple as that. You go through that process, and then if you get past that first big day, they take you on to the next stage, which is singing in front of the judges, which was the stage in the previous years that I'd never got past. When I got in front of the judges, the judges said get out okay. But this third year, yeah, it was a different It was a different setup.

It was the judges had changed.

It went from Dicko to Kyle Yep and yeah, then I got through, and then I just kept getting through. I just kept going to the next stage, turning up, thinking oh this will be like, this will shortly be the end.

I'll be going home now. And I just just kept getting through.

So when the show, whatever night that was played on and you're performing, then the next day people would have been interested in you. Did you realize your life was changing the further you went up in the competition?

I mean, yes, life had definitely changed. You know what, once I got into that top twelve, you really locked well, I was really locked up in a bubble. And again, it wasn't social media wasn't a thing there wasn't TikTok

These groups of like lots of people turning up. But yeah, like I guess it was.

I didn't realize the magnitude of what was going on out there until it was over and you get you know, when the winner is k de Rouge and then his manager comes out and sort of takes you off, and you go through this whirlwind of interviews and then you sort of out on the street in the real world, and you know, and I feel a bit of saying this, but like everybody knew my name, and it was very bizarre, and not everybody knew my name in a good way.

And then other people like screw you shouldn't have won your shit. So it was it's as lot as an eighteen year old kid to I guess walk into.

I was going to say, that is so much to take, like any profile or public profile if you appear in media, and I spent years in the in the police, fronting up to media conferences, and it's intimidating in for someone that's you know, a lot older than eighteen, as an eighteen year old and then rocking up to do interviews and all that. I would imagine and maybe maybe you didn't, but you'd feel like a bit of an imposter syndrome too in that environment and what's all this attention about me?

And I would get this feeling, and again that feeling of you know, carried through with me all the time. I'd be like imposter syndrome, Like one day someone I'm going to wake up here and someone's going to come in and be like, sorry, we've made a terrible mistake. You could just pop off back to Bendigo where you you know, just and obviously that never happened, but that was the feeling all the time. And there wasn't years

You know.

I liked wearing tracksuit pants and baggy clothes and really didn't know anything about that. And I would I'd turn up to radio stations looking like I just rolled out of bed because I didn't know that there was anything. I didn't know I was meant to do it any other I was a terrible famous person.

Gap the tracksuit nug boots didn't cover it.

I was just terrible. No, I didn't know.

Nobody mentioned to me, I've got to get up at four thirty and go to this radio station where no one can see you, but I need you to look a million dollars Like nobody mentioned that stuff to me. Hindsight, it's probably common sense, but you know, I was just continued to be the cake that I'd always been.

And so yeah, the truth was I probably wasn't. I wasn't very good at being famous.

It weren't ready for at the time. Did you have people around you advising you and all that, like people that all? Was it that you just caught up in this cocktail of people go out and want you hear want you there, and did you have anyone actually looking out for your interests that was giving you some sage advice time?

No, no, not back then it was just these you know, there was a management, a record label and an agent and they just you just think.

I think it was very much sincos. We didn't work it out and do it or you know, get out of here.

You you didn't even get through the show about controversy because you know, you talked about body image and that and Kyle Sandlan's managed to put his big foot in it and that. Yeah, that's not the type of publicity you want to be caught up in that age as well. Tell us what happened there and how do you handled that? Well?

Yeah, I mean by that point I'd already pretty much cemented for myself that you know, I was not attractive and that kind of stuff, and that I should have felt shame about my body. But you know, I went exactly the way you would imagine it to an eighteen year old girl standing on national television and some do telling you to cover up your body.

Like it didn't It didn't feel good.

But also yeah, for some reason, it just was water off a ducks back by that point because it was like, oh, yeah, I know that you tell me something I don't know, you know what I mean. So it was probably a lot more horrific in the moment for everybody else than it was for me. But I guess if I could go back and talk to Kate of eighteen year eighteen years old, I'd probably give her a bit of a hug there.

She probably needed one. But you know, and this is the bit that's shocking.

It's TVCV, right, So you know, I got off stage and went the show finished that night and Kyle came up. He said, oh, sorry about that comment, but you're saying a bit like shit. So I just needed I just wanted to get you the sympathy.

Vote, you know what I mean. So it didn't mean what it didn't mean for him what it meant to the rest to everyone else.

Yeah, okay, but it was just another layer of controversy. You're finding stardom and you don't want to say it, but I'll say it, like that brought your stardom for that age that time. Winning a show like that, you're going to be recognized on the street. People are going to be taking pictures of you. People will come up and asked it if they could get a picture of you type of thing. How did your process that? Did you enjoy it? Yeah? I did?

Look I enjoyed it when I did, you know what, I did enjoy it. And it was nice to feel important, you know what I mean. I'd wanted that feeling my whole life. I always, you know, thought if I was popular and cool that I'd be okay. And I guess being thrown out into that world kind.

Of gave me that in a way.

So yeah, of course, when people are coming up to you on the street asking for pictures and signatures, it's like I'd be lying if I didn't say it felt good.

Right, So tell us the good times from there. So what happens after you when a show like that? How did your life change for you?

I changed in the you know, change in every single way. You know, I became a household name, you know. I everything looked different, you know. I was traveling all over Australia doing all kinds of things. I was doing stuff that little girls still dream about, you know, looking in the marrassing and into their hairbrush.

I was doing it.

I was living it, and you know, I.

Was singing at AFL Grand Finals and all of these, you know, tens of thousands of people and in front of you know, people often ask me, especially after where life went from there when it wasn't so good, they always go, oh, do you regret it?

And would you take it back if you could? And it's absolutely not. Like it was the stuff that dreams are made of. I got to live.

I got to live the dream and make film clips and release songs and have number ones and win arias and rub shoulders with all the big important I call them real famous people, like people that took ages to get famous, you know, like those.

Kinds of people that I grew up watching or that I grew up listening to. I got to be a part of all that, and I wouldn't give that back for the world.

Did the highs that you get performing I would imagine in front of a crowd and hanging on watching your performance, coming to see you, and that you walk off stage, what do you have? Hang on to the high for a bit, and then you hit hit loads. You're trying to chase that the whole time.

Yeah, yes, I.

Guess, you know, if I'm to be totally honest, I guess I got introduced to drugs pretty quickly after that. That was when that all sort of those two worlds collided. So I was chasing highs, yes, from the performances, and I did enjoy them. I and I you know, would come off stage and be present, I guess with the band or whoever was around at the time, But you know, I started chasing other things pretty quickly because there's an energy.

I would imagine you come off stage with an energy, and I never like I look at the world renowned rock stars and think, how do they come down from performing in front of one hundred thousand people when the whole energy is hinging all everything they say, do move and that? How do they come down? And when yeah, drugs permeate into that world, I saw the go I get it, they're looking looking for a high after that, How do you match that high or even to come down one or the other?

Yeah, one hundred percent, And that was the next That was the only thing that felt better than drugs during that time was being on stage.

Yeah, And that was the only thing that matched that feeling.

Yeah, when did you when did your first partake in illegal drugs? At what stage? Ah? What did I?

I one idol in the November, probably within six months, maybe three months.

Right, and drugs wasn't a part of your life up to that point.

I think I'd done ecstasy once, but I was scared of drugs. And I always knew to be scared of drugs, you know. I always had that, and you know, different to what it is now. There's drugs absolutely everywhere and it's terrifying. I'm terrified for my own kids. But there weren't drugs at school or any of that stuff in Bendigo when I was there. You might have the occasional about smoke and a joint, but that was a big deal. Yeah, And look, I drank a few times and always did

Like that's just who I am. As I said, I just do it all extreme, But I didn't mean I didn't meet drugs, I guess until after idle and the first thing I was introduced was cocaine.

And cocaine is I think, and I'm pretty sure it's not changed. Is no different in many industries and worlds, especially that corporate world as being handed to beer.

It's not shocking the corporate world, so many worlds that cocaine is just you're not judged that. Yeah, it's what happens at the dinner party, what happens at the function, what happens in the bathroom. Yeah, there's no social stigma to it. You would have had the usual warnings growing up from your parents and the narrative just don't touch drugs.

Look, my parents, of course, had always given me those warnings, and you know, I knew drugs are bad and all of that kind of stuff.

But I guess they were naive too in many ways.

They wouldn't have had an idea that there would have been the amount of cocaine floating around at most events or most situations.

I would find myself into the degree that it was, And I guess probably and.

One of my big one of my big regrets of that time is that I'm really lucky with the family that I have and I we're all very close and was still very close, and for whatever reason, I pushed them away through that time.

You know, I leant towards all of these people that I've known for thirty seconds and put my life and my trust in them rather than the people that I knew that I could trust. So yeah, I was just living life.

You know.

I was just like I am I am something here and I'm hanging out with all of these people. And you know, the first time that I tried cocaine, you know, I didn't just have one line, you know, I had it and I was like, what is this stuff? And where do we get more?

And this is what this is what I talk about with that addiction stuff.

It's like there were one hundred other people there that day, and however, many of those people took drugs, but not everybody had the same reaction to them that I did, you know what I mean?

And that was instant obsession with what I was doing.

And I knew where that bag was until it was gone, and when it was gone, my anxiety was instantly through the roof of like, well, where are we getting more?

You've got the taste and you want the instant Yeah, yeah, How long did were you living the high life with that, dabbling in the in the cocaine, hanging out with the music industry types and touring? How long tell us through that period of your life.

Look, I've got to continue having a pretty incredible career for a while, and I didn't necessarily use drugs every day from that day, but I certainly thought about them, and you know, I knew when they were going to.

Be around me next.

But you know, from there, I joined a girl group called the Young Divers, which were, you know, incredibly successful, and a whole other chapter of my career that was unbelievable and unforgettable. But as if I was to put it on a scale, for a really long time, I was able to be this keep face for a long time and do these drugs behind closed doors and keep

To be honest, tell us about the time with the young divas and the crew that you were touring with. There, that would have been a fun, fun, wild time, I would imagine.

Look it was, and it was unexpected, you know, nobody expected it to do. It was only ever meant to be a single and some shows, I think from memory it was just meant to be really quick money making thing.

And this time I know, it's for real, came out and.

Everyone went wild and it just blew up and all the people that make all the money were wet their pants and they're like, oh my god, we've found.

We're on with hit gold.

And it went from what it was meant to be to two albums and however many shows we did, and you know, nobody ever wanted it to end, but obviously it did. But yeah, it was and again it was incredible that we were touring, We were selling out shows, we were so busy, we were learning songs on aeroplanes on the way to gigs. Yeah, it was an unbelievable time and another time in my life I wouldn't give back for the world.

It was challenging.

Yeah, I would imagine who was in the who was in the band?

First lineup was myself, Emily Williams, Paulini, and Ricky Lee, and then Ricky left after the first album, and then we got Jess Melboy came in. She'd just come off the next season of Vital Yeah, she was season four, I think little she was just a baby, and she stepped in for Ricky and we did another album and another tour and then it all sort of went from there.

Did the money flow in from that? Did you make money from it?

I should have made a lot of money from it, right.

I've never really spoken about this in depth, and I have no reason not to, I guess these days, no one's ever asked me the question. But you know, we were not taking care of through that time. You know, we were getting paid a lot of money, but not

But we were so young and so inexperienced.

I think that, you know, and I remember trying to confront management once or twice or however many times. You know, I grew up around a really smart businessman. My dad's an incredible businessman and done really well for himself, so I knew enough to know that things weren't right. And whenever I approached the subject of like, oh, can you just explain to me where this has gone or where that's gone, you know, it was always met with how ungrateful or or shut down in a major way.

So it was, you know, yeah, and I'm not I'm not saying this is a case. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But you're very exploitable in that position, aren't you. Here you are, look the dangling you can perform here, perform there, forget the money, I'll do this for nothing. And then you and then you you look back and go where did all that money go?

Yeah? Well, hang on a minute, wait a minue, where's all my money? And yeah, and look there was also that thing of and I don't know.

If it's still the same with the shows these days, but they owned my ass for a long time, you know, like between my management there, record label, they were they owned me, They owned all.

Of us and this is all contracts you're locked into and.

That you know they there was it was do this, do it that way, or we'll put you, you know, forget about it. We can find other people.

We can find another one. Did you think your life was set? Did you think, now you made it to that run, this is your future? Did you did you see your future as being a performer in the music industry?

I think so.

Yeah.

I guess after that happened, I just I kept just rolling with what was happening. I never expected, well, I mean, I never expected it or all to fall apart the way that it did anyway, you know, that's not how I saw it happening. And I just kept I just thought there would just always be more work and always be more gigs, and I'd always be able to find more. But I guess as that other part of my life, that other beast took hold, my interest in it and my care for it also disappeared.

Was there anyone that you came across in the industry that you saw the negative effects of drugs that had been taken down by dabbling in drugs? Something that you Yeah, there was a red flag for me. There's a warning sign and that person was at the top of the game and the drugs got hold of them. Did you see any of that in the time that you were touring.

No, I never saw it. I never saw it firsthand. I guess I was probably the example at the time.

No, Like you hear stories of you know, big rock stars and all those people from you know, back in the day that lost their way, But no, I'd never seen anybody really the way.

As far as I could see, it was just what everybody did.

Yeah, yeah, I have become good friends with him. Rick Grossman from the Vinyls and Hodoo Gurus, the bass player, and he got in the Heroin when he was in the the Vinyls, lost his position in the band there because it just became Yeah, he thought he was hiding it, but he wasn't actually hiding it and left the band and then got a second shot at it with the Hodoo Gurus and gone on from success to success there. But he was saying in conversations with him, how it

I think I did, and I thought for a really, really long time that I would.

I could stop if I wanted to, And what you said before, I really thought nobody knew had a really humbling moment. Recently, I posted a video on TikTok got a bit of attention, and it was me talking about my experience with idol and drugs and blah blah blah blah blah, and I had at least ten people come back and say, yeah, I came across you during that time. You were awful with different choice language, and I was

And easy going.

And it was interesting that at least ten people came back, yeah, I came across you in this situation and you were terrible or you were really rude, and that was you know, you think that you've got yourself under control.

But look, it would be hard night. You know where these young footballers go off track, you know, and we're talking eight nine erinen year olds that you know, all of a sudden become famous overnight because of their skills of on the football field, and we judge them hard if they misbehavior or whatever. But I reckon it takes an exceptional person not to get caught up in your

Well, the thing that they do.

And I just wish back those I wish there'd just been one person that would have told me the truth, one that would have said, you've lost your shit, Kate, or pull your shit together, or you know, everybody knows or whatever, but you're right. Everyone's just like, yeah, OK, off you go, You're amazing, we love you. And I could have walked off stage and saying out of tune for the whole show, and everybody would have still told

Yeah, you said you pushed. Whether it was deliberately or it might have just been in life style you're living at the time that you sort of stepped away from your family and your old friends because they're they're they're a great source of bringing you back to reality if you've you've lost lost your way. Was that done deliberately because you didn't want anyone to rain you in or it was just circumstances.

Probably to Probably as time went on, it was because I didn't want them to see what I was doing. But initially it was because I got blindsided by the lights.

I guess, you know.

Initially it was that I remember, I can't remember, might have been management at the time. I think I went in and said, oh, I spoke to my dad, which I do every day and still do. I spoke to my dad and he suggested this, and I remember one of them saying to me, yeah, but your dad's not in this.

Industry, what would he know? And I was like, yeah, or actually, what would he know? And it was just stuff like that. I think they wanted to be able to sort of puppet.

I suppose, and I'm putting the accusations that people I've never met, but I'm just theorizing here. I suppose it's in their interest to cut your way from people that might pull you away from them, because it's in their interests just to have you and point you in the direction and keep pushing you if the money's coming in.

Of course, and we were just money makers at that time.

And again, look, I've shared a lot of things in this in the last twenty minutes that I haven't really talked about before, again because no one's asked me. But I'm not bitter or angry about any of this stuff anymore. And I appreciate that it's just the way the industry was then. You know, It's not I wasn't the only one that had happened to and I'm not poor me and you know, all that stuff.

Pity.

It's just the way that it's just the way that it works, and it was happening to everybody, but yeah, they.

Had an outcome and they had a vision and they did what they had to do to make it work that way.

And there's a trade off for you, like the benefits for you as well as benefits for them. So it's not you know, it's not a one way street or take take like you're getting benefits and living the dream as you said in the Pop Star traveling around the country and yeah, enjoying yourself. Okay, drugs. Talk us through the build up of it, like the start off at cocaine Okay, after party, after the concert, you do a couple of lines of cocaine. When did it become well,

Instantly for me? Yep, it didn't. It was not a slow burn for me.

It was I'd met this thing and it was might became my everything and I didn't know how to or I very rarely would go to any kind of social anything without drugs on me with cocaine, and it wasn't ever one or two lines. It was one or two bags, and it was as much as I could. It was until I couldn't find anymore.

Always And were you paying for it in these days or was this just that the industry? There was always stuff floating around.

I mean, you'd get a little bit like I'll call them the normal people that use cocaine. I shouldn't say that, but yes, there's normal people that can go out and have two lines of coke and go home and get back to their lives the next day.

Those people exist, and good on them, not me, But you know, I.

Wanted to take it further always, so there was there might be a you know, I might get a line or two here, but there would I would always have my own supply that I would bring and pay for it.

Yeap. When did you ever have a moment to where and you don't have to go into all the gory details, but have a moment when you're gone, oh shit, like look what I've done because yeah, I've been on the bendor for for the eight hours. Did you ever have that moment where you're thinking, maybe this is not the best thing to be doing.

Yeah, yep, definitely. There would be a lot of There would be times when I'd have to get to work and I hadn't been to bed, and I, you know, I was feeling it's you know, be up for two days and then have to try and gather myself and get my head in the game and turn up to an important gig or an important whatever, or get to an airport.

Yeah. I never felt good in those moments, but it was never enough to stop me.

Sadly, any of the people you're performing, we've give you a nudge and say, hey, you know, we've got to perform. I read one article about you that someone that with you said we didn't realize how bad it was because she always turned up and always was on time. Is that just part of your masking? Or people anyone close to you that you're touring with or living the lifestyle, we'd give you a tap on the shoulder.

I think I'm from memory and I couldn't tell you what she said, but I'm fairly sure Emily, who I did my season of Idol with, and I you know her, and I have a lot of love for her and always will.

I'm pretty sure she pulled me aside. She did.

I don't think she necessarily knew exactly what was going on, but she knew something wasn't right, and she pulled me up and said, you know, something's not right.

Get your shit together like it was, you know, but no, not really.

Okay, how long was the cocaine dream going for before you started other drugs? And what were those drugs?

I don't know.

I guess the other ones just started to sprinkle their way in along the way, you know, you start taking a bit of ecstasy and different party drugs. But the one that got me, that I that really made me unwell, which is one that people don't talk about a lot, but I think it's a really dangerous one and one that needs to be spoken about, especially in younger kids, is nitrous oxide.

Okay, talk us through that.

So nitros oxide is it's a gas, obviously, and it's the gas that you get at the dentist or when you're having a baby, or you know, it's a medical gas.

Yeah, when those things were happening, did you just well, I don't care, like I'm living my life. Don't try and ram me in. What was the attitude that you had that kept you not fully appreciating what you were doing?

Oh, look, it's a bit of jecky. There's two parts of me in this, and you know, I there's the addict part of me, and that is a part of me, I guess.

But you know, there's also Kate and and I was both of these people, and I was at war with myself. But I guess the addict part of me was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And of course when things went wrong, I would be devastated and I'd cry, and I'd get hysterical and I'd play up.

But I just wasn't able to stop.

Yeah, And I think unless I truly believe, unless you've ever felt that feeling or been in that situation, or truly been addicted to something, it's insanity. There's no two ways about it. Like from an outside of looking in, you go, fuck excuse my lone, but just fucking stop it, Like what.

Are you doing?

Look at your life crumbling to the ground, And I'm sitting there going I know, but I can't, can't stop.

So it was it can't it was it wasn't I don't want to stop. Part of you in the good case, part of the brains going you need to stop. I want to stop. I want to stop this. But the addiction is you couldn't stop it.

I couldn't. I just couldn't. I didn't know how to do life without it. I just didn't and it. Yeah, and like the.

Relationships that I lost, you know, I lost a really long term relationship with a beautiful human, you know, and I didn't want to lose that. And of course I cared when I lost it, like it broke my heart and it still breaks my heart today, you know.

But did that relationship end because of the ship way you were acting? Was that the part of it?

Essentially? Essentially?

Essentially my parents came and got me out of that house with him and said, you need to let her go. Yeah, you know, they broke up with my boyfriend for me essentially.

But that's it. That's interesting, isn't it. So the breakicking up on behalf of your boyfriend saving your boyfriend rather than you like you say, yeah.

Okay, let it go mate. I remember they came and got me and they said, just.

Let it go. Yeah. Heavy stuff, Okay, the drug ice? When did you? And how and why? And I say this, and I say this to all people because there's different levels of drugs and there's even like a pecking order of Okay, well someone does cocaine, and that's socially acceptable heroin in its day, just a junkie heroin. Why would you touch ice? How did that happen? Because you would have had the warnings and I'm sure when you were going through the cake stage, I just do the lines

You just do? You know, that's just the progression of it.

And as I said to you, by the time I met the time I tried ice, I was so far down the rabbit I wouldn't have cared what it was.

I was so I was lost and just so.

Filled with pain and just hatred for myself and for everything. I would have done anything to make the pain stop, you know what I mean. And I had no skills as to how to do life without drugs, and the drugs that I was doing weren't working anymore, and I couldn't afford the drugs that I was using.

All that stuff.

It was just and so of course, I'm sure, I'm sure I knew on a subconscious level that ice probably wasn't going.

To end well for me. But when I and I was and I was really you know, strung out and not well, and I didn't feel good and I was tired, and then I and then I had tried ICE for the first time. And I'm not going to lie to you, Like, initially Ice, I thought it made me a better person.

That's a delusion, I know, initially, and I'm sure you've seen it yourself, and you know Ice, the people on Ice are so deluded and remove from reality. But I really thought in the beginning that I was better. Like I was able to function, I was able to get stuff done. I didn't look a mess, you know what I mean. Like it changed the way I appeared for a little while, obviously, until it didn't. But by the time I met that drug, there was no consequential thinking

Yeah, so it's interesting hearing your story and appreciate you being so open with it that you've got into the coke. You're starting to hate yourself and so okay, well, what's the matter If I dabbling nice at this stage, you've hit low, I'll go lower. Who cares? Like, Look, yeah, were you still performing at that stage? No?

I lost the lot by then? Oh god, it's all such a mess.

But in my mind.

But look, I was hanging onto a career with the grim you know what I mean. Like I had also gone.

Into a deep depression after the Divas finished, and I'd put on about sixty kilos, you know, that food addiction. My parents had come and got me from Sydney and taken me out of my life and brought me back home to Bendigo to try and fix me up. So I guess the drugs and everything that I was doing weren't available anymore.

So I really got.

Into drinking heavily. I just would move to whatever was next, you know what I mean. Drinking and food really played back up in my life. Food was what I just buried myself in overeating. But you know, I had a manager along the way, a different manager that i'd found that really always still believed in me. And I wrote some music and recorded some music and went I got a gastric sleeve, so I lost all this weight and I got offered this radio job in Marucci Door, filling

And I was like, no, no, no, I've got it. I'm a grown up, I'm a grown ass woman. I'll do what i want to do. This is exactly what I need for my career.

And that was I just become a full blown alcoholic and lost that job and then met this guy one night who had an ice pipe.

Yep, and that was it. That was I'm used And that was the beginning of the end.

Really it must have been like soul destroying for yourself, but you didn't have the proper perspective on that. But your family bringing you back to the farm, trying to really working hard to get the old Kate back all those steps and then it's blowing again.

Yeah, and they were desperate, and you know, I look back on those times and the desperation in their their eyes have just like just shut up, Kate and just listen, like just trust. But you know, as I said, I was just so far gone and I just was so unable to live without I was just mad.

Was it harder having seen the bright lights of the stardom phase of your life and then stepping away from that at that point in time because you lost all that was that? Yeah, if you hadn't seen that side of life. You didn't even know it existed. You dream about it. That's a life that other people live having seen that life? Was it hard when you lost that life?

Of course, and incredibly embarrassing and shameful. And I was probably a bit delusional around that for a long time, held onto something that was gone.

You know, I'd really burn a lot of bridges through that time. You know, my name had mud all over it. You know, I'd really done some damage in the within the industry. And it sounds like a big place to be, but it's not. You know, it's a small it's a small world.

So yeah, of course it was. And I had to grieve it, and it took me years to do that.

It took me took me until I got clean this last time to be able to actually grieve the career that I had and lost and and the way that I thought my life life was going to play out.

Okay, well, I can imagine that it would be hard coming to terms with it when those phone calls aren't returned and the messages aren't returned, and you're thinking, what have I done something wrong?

Yeah, and not knowing why? Yeah, but yes, Kate, you did heats wrong.

Yeah, let us tell you we might. We might take a break now at part one and we'll come back to part two. I'd like to say it's all all the way up from here, but we do go to lower grounds. When you're addicted to ice for seven years? Is it seven years?

About that?

Hell of a long time? You're looking good now, someone that's come through that. So I think there's there's a happy ending at the end of this story.

But I promise it gets good. I promise it gets good.

We're going to get a little bit lower than we're going to come up for. Okay, we'll take a break and we'll be back for part two shortly