It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload, the podcast Last Weep Their Life. Hey guys, welcome back to TV Reload. I want to thank you for clicking and downloading on today's episode with Nadia Bartell, who is the first bodoted celebrity from Channel Seven's Dancing with the Stars, which I'm going to say is one of my favorite seasons of this show. And this show's been on TV for like twenty years, so that's definitely saying something. My guest today, Nadia Bartell, is an Australian
model and clothing designer. She is the former wife of retired AFL footballer Jimmy Bartel. You could say that Nadia is one of Australia's most influential influences with over half a million followers on Instagram. But you know what, I also like to think of her as just a hardworking mum with a compelling story. I will talk about how hard it is to learn all of those dances and just how many routines Nadia had to learn during rehearsals.
We will find out the truth if she was a diva behind the scenes, and if she clashed with some of the creative team. There is an opportunity to talk about what her children thought of them on Dancing with the Stars and how Nardia chose to watch or maybe not watched the show. We will discuss the other stars on the show and get an exciting behind the scenes look at Nardia's thoughts on doctor Chris Brown and Sonja Krugez vibe during filming and what they're like between takes.
There is so much to talk about with Nadia, as you could imagine, So guys, sit back and relax as we unpack the very exciting world of Dancing with the Stars. Hi Nadia, Hi, how are you? I'm doing very well. Excited to wake up on Monday and have my breakfast with you, That's all I'm saying. It's great. What an amazing opportunity to get asked to do this show. I mean, Dancing with the Stars is one of the more celebrated
reality shows that you get asked to do. People really enjoy doing this one as opposed to some of the others. What was your reaction when you got the call.
I'm so excited because I have always actually wanted to be on this show. I was actually lucky enough for the two years ago as well, but I couldn't make it work with my boys, who are a lot younger that time. So yeah, I was so excited, and I really wanted to make it work because, yeah, as you said, I just think it's a really fun show, and I think, you know, everyone wants to learn to dance.
I see, especially for me.
I love to dance like at home around the lounge room, and it's just something that I really enjoyed.
So I was super pumped.
What I've realized about this show is how little I know about dancing, because while I watched you dance in all of your dances, I was like, Nadia is amazing. Whoo, And then it would go to the judges and they'd be like saying all of these comments. Was it hard to want to do this show and do as well as you did and then to sort of face this course sort of criticism.
Yeah, it was interesting. I what was hard about the show, I guess, is that you can think you know how to dance and you can do all these moves and like, oh, my girlfriends are like, you're gonna now this show because you're such a good dance. But I think when you have to actually learn the technique. It's a whole different ballgame, and obviously it's also the judges interpretation of what they think.
But I do think that my second performance of Detained Go, I actually did feel pretty good when I finished that one, So I was a bit surprised to hear the judges comments. So obviously I respect them and they definitely know what they're talking about. And I think that it's particularly with that pain Go dance. It's a ballroom style, so you need to like hold your head and it's a really awkward position and you need.
To kind of filter your head up.
And I wasn't like smile.
I had to be really like fierce and serious, which I found really hard.
So I think I was really.
Concentrating on getting all those technique things right. But then maybe that's probably why then my call wasn't like switched on a all those things. It's just there's so much that dance you need to think about, and I think that's the main thing I kind of took out of it. I'm like, it's not just going out there and dancing, it's like also performing and getting into character. And I think that was one of the main things that were
trying to teach me to get into character. But for me, not being a performer, never getting up on stage, I found that really hard to get out there and try to be a different person to who I am. So yeah, it was very interesting.
You're not an actor and so no, what's interesting about that is when you don't have that approach to putting something on audiences, probably even the judges can pick up on something that feels a little bit unauthentic. And there were some looks that you gave when because I've really watched you dance a few times, like get a restraining order against me. Anyway, there were some looks that you had,
you know, that just didn't seem like you. It didn't seem like the Nadia of the known and we've seen in the media over the years, you know what I mean.
And especially because if you watched the first week, I would probably I could be more me, so I could just like be happy.
And run around.
But in the second tango performance, Kali aby he's the amazing creative director behind dancing.
But it starts she told me, I.
Really is getting the character. I need to be like this fierce woman and think about all these things.
And someone's trying to take the children away and.
How you would act, and I was finding it really difficult to get in that kind of frame of mind with my like my look in my eyes.
Your eyes need to be really fierce. And I was like, oh.
So I found that really really difficult.
And you're right.
I think if you're an actor, or even someone like Lisa mcchuwne that seems to doing a lot of obviously be time active, but she does a lot of theater and stuff as well, it's kind of easy for them to get the character. But I struggled with that, and that's why I was laughing because even my dad, who watched it last night, like the face shoulder, I'm like, I know, but I didn't. I had to do that. I was told to do that.
But I think you're right.
If I was more of an actor and you had to do, you know, get on stage, I think I'd be able to get into character like that and it looked natural.
So for me, it didn't look very natural.
I've seen you walk down the Chapel Street and Windsor with your children when you're in full mum mode and people are watching you, and that protective mum face was enough. Bluff face that we saw.
It's not the same kind of face.
No, it's not. Everyone wants a piece of you. They're all looking at you with your children and you can't had that look like bugger off. But that face was not what we saw, you know what I mean, It's very different.
One was the real face and the other one was trying to do that. Yeah.
Absolutely absolutely. Now I read something that because you know you're a fashion designer, that is your trade, that you were I don't know, butting heads with the people of the creative team trying to get these costumes together. Is that all garbage? And what's the most amount of garbage you've read while being on Dancing with the Stuff? Oh no, I haven't.
Even seen that. No, that was totally not true. I haven't even seen that written anywhere.
No, that was so.
I loved working with the whole creative team in the costume design. I just let them do their things. I didn't try to control anything. I was like, you know what, this is their thing, their show. I'm happy just to be on it.
So yeah, I loved what they put me in.
Like obviously, the second outfit, which was more like Queen a Parts, is very different to what I'd normally wear, but that's all what it's all about, getting up there to perform, and yeah, just take it all in.
It'd be hard, I think sometimes i'd need to sit on my hands. If that was what I was good at, I'd be like, well, you know, you could lift the ham a little here, you know, or you could accessorize a little here, you know what I mean. It would be easy, I guess for people to kind of make up that rumor because that is you gage, do you know what I mean?
So I had to kind of let go with it, like it wasn't me. I was just thinking, it's not like me and what I wear to like a fashion event or something like that. Like this is their show and they know what they're doing and I don't know anything about, you know, getting up stage and dancing.
So I was like, they know what's best for me to wear.
But they were really lovely because with one of the promo outfits and shops we got to their mental dress everyone. But they did say to me and Leu because Lu my dad's partner. He's really into fashion as well, and they were like, you know what, you guys can just sort out.
Your own outfit just glue.
Yes, I thought about out for Us, which I liked and wearing the same like baby blue color.
So yeah, they were great. They were really easy to work with.
You're pretty well connected in the media world. You've got a lot of friends, let's just say that. And there's a lot of people that have done this show. I'm thinking, if I'm Nadia, who do I reach out to and ask for advice? Did you go down the line and look for people who've done the show before and try and get some tips.
I did not.
Too many of them, actually, to be honest. I did speak to Olympia Valance a.
Lot, and she has such a good experience in the show, and she's obviously done really well, and yeah, she loved it, So I spoke to her a little bit and got some tips and different things. But I think she's such She's obviously an actor, so she's such a great performer. So I think it's like I didn't really speak to anyone that was probably in the same boat as me, that had probably never had any experience.
In dance or dancing as a kid, because.
I think like, even if you've danced a little bit as a kid, of those early years. It's kind of embedded in you, where with me, I was the opposite, So I was like, never did dance or seeither or anything like that, but I was really into sport. So yeah, I do find that you think, you know, you needs to be fit to dance, But I think it's a whole different ball game for me. Just being good at sport and athletics and you know, netball and all of those things.
That doesn't mean it's going to make you into being a good dancer.
No, but you've got a good rig. You've got a rig for dancing, you mustly.
They're also tiny, the dancers are so petite and tiny it's crazy.
I guess. So you know, there was people online also sort of commenting with last night's episode saying that, you know, with some more maybe more recognizable people like Lisa McCune, are they is it harder to beat them because they are Maybe? I don't know, what what do you call this? Accunons she'd been on television for like, you know, one hundred years.
It is, but I just I think I know what you mean. It's not the most even ball game in a way.
Becau obviously, like even I spoke tually for a lot backstage because she knew that I was like, I'm so nervous, Like after I wasn't nervous, but after my first performance, I got a little bit of stage right as soon as I kind of jumped on stage.
I think that was just because it was.
Just also new to me, and seeing the whole audience stare back at me and the cameras and the lights, and it was just something that I just obviously I've never experienced that before, so it was, yeah, I got a little bit of oh and just felt like I forgot everything in that moment, and it did come back
once I started dancing. But I remember speaking to Lisa after that performance, and she was so great because obviously she's got so much experience being after but then in theater, so she's been dealing theater i think for the last ten years, and she's really kind of comfortable getting up on stage and getting into character.
And she said to me, she's like, it's something that you know, you've got to kind of practice at it. It's not going to come easily.
But maybe for some other people like Nikki on the show, who's a comedian, she also is used to kind of being up on stay even that it was a totally different thing.
That she's doing.
She's maybe used to the impassive that, but for me, I just found it quite It was a lot for I think it was just something that I'm not used to, and I found that whole like kind of like, oh, just forgetting everything in that moment, you're quite daunting.
I remember reading an article about two actors, one being Claudia Carvin, the other one being Nicole Kidman, and they both had been away from theater doing television and film for a long time, and that they said, when you're out of practice of doing something live, you forget that you do always get those nerves and that there's a process. You know, there's a process in how you can get
around that. Do you feel like if you were to keep going throughout the competition you would have been able to sort of harness that and try and get into it, or do you reckon that the nerves would have always been there. No.
I think what you're saying is so spot on because I think by my third performance, which is my elimination dance the World, I actually felt like that was one of my best and I just got into the mode a little bit more and I felt really comfortable. And a lot of people were commenting to me last night saying that I looked more comfortable in that dance, So I think, yeah, I felt like by that third dance, I felt the nerve.
But I kind of used it to propel me as I think it's what you're you're kind of getting through.
I do feel that I've had that before when I've done like toasting or you know, speaking at live events with hundreds of people. I've done a little bit of that before with business, but I think, you know, I can feel really nervous doing that. But I think because I really know, like I know my business, I know what I'm talking about, I can feel the nerves. But then when I get on there, I find that you get over it and you almost kind of can do really well.
But I think with this, because it was such an.
Unknown with dancing and like learning the steps and trying to get.
It all together, like with my face and technique that acting, the performance, getting into character, I think there was too many things going on where then I felt.
The nerves and it all just became a little bit too much.
Where I think like the more you do it, the easier became so I'm sure if I was able to stay in the competition a little bit longer, I think I would have become more and more comfortable, which would have been good.
Didn't get there, though, but.
You would have. I feel like you would have because I could see that progression. And that's kind of where I was going with it, because I could see that mentality growing for you. It is like going to the gym and working out a muscle, and that sort of stage right that can happen. You know, you sort of get used to it the more and more, or you
go down the line, you know. I know that people have told me that you are learning not just that dance, and that's something that audiences probably should need to know, is that you know it is not just you logging that one particular dance as you're in those long dance rehearsals, you're learning quite a few. How many dances were you learning over the weeks that you were training.
That's the hard I think I didn't get to perform the other dances I was learning. Learning that I learned that sick.
Oh wow. See that's what people need to know. Yeah, six dances going into the brain is way different. Yes, it's way different than.
It's so hard, and there's all different techniques between all of them. So like you know, with the charter, it's like, let you move forward with your toe with the thing that it's going to be the heel board in the earth. It's just like they're all so different as well, between the bore room and between then the salsa and yeah, it's and the way you move your hips between the charter after.
The selfa is totally different. And I was learning the selsa and.
Yeah it's quite Yeah, I'm not sure if we're allowed to talk about that, but that's the thing. It's like I think people say gets done over this long period, you have all this time, but it's all very it's quite crammed in as well.
Was there a dance that we didn't get to see that you were wanting us to see? And can you tell us what song that was? I mean, just for people out there that missed out, they can they can vision board this shit, you know what I mean.
Well, I didn't get to learn I didn't get to finish learning it probably, but I was kind of learning that.
I was learning the salsa, and I think.
That would have been really fun because I love a fast space kind of dance.
I would have like.
That's why I quite enjoyed the Charter, even though it was my first performance and I was a bit like well during Headlights my first but I did like that. I liked moving around, moving my hips and you know, being able to be myself, probably more so than the bareroom style dancing, even though I loved watching ballroom. I think for me, I did find that stull a little
bit harder. So yeah, it would have been like fun to do some of that sole dance or even a little bit more free style dance thing when I can get out there and just run a round and have fun.
But who knows, who knows what might happen in the future.
And I think I met a beautiful dancer in the competition, Jess Rats and the partner is from Better Home than Garden. She's beautiful and she holds she's got like in Brighton, she holds classes with which is like combining dancing with
like pilaratees kind of things. I think I might start doing that with her, and I think that'll be fun, because now that I've got a bit of a taste of dancing, I do think that I know I toally showcase it on the show, but I do think that I've got more potential maybe than people saw on there, So I think I want to pursue it a little bit and have a little bit of fun with her.
So we had a little bit of a connection together, which is good.
It's a good mix of people this year. Like, you know, what's so funny is that, you know, I keep my fingers in a lot of pies and trying to listen to a lot of stories and people in the industry, and I just kept hearing again and again that there was a very good mix of celebrities this year. The stars this year all got along and we're very supportive of one another, which doesn't always happen. So was everyone really lovely?
Yeah, we had oh my gosh, I cannot tell you, like we had such a great task, But every single one of them I felt like I connected with and I had great chats with on multiple different topics, and even people that you wouldn't think that you would connect with, we did. Like, so yeah, I just think we were really really lucky because I've heard that as well. I've
heard that in the past. Yes, that maybe hasn't been like that, but I think it's because there was a bit of a mix and it was interesting chatting to a lot of the other parts. And a lot of them have done other reality shows where I hadn't, so it was really interesting learning about all of that as well.
But good one's done them all. She's done. I think she's punched her date cards, she's been in the jungle, she's been dancing, she's yeah, she's done everything, and she's just.
As they've done so many of them. Imad Day's done quite a few. Nikkis that I'm celebrity. I was like really surprised.
I was like, oh wow, I'm like a little newbie. I've got no idea what you could spect here?
Are you going to get your date card out and punch all the day cards for all these celebrity shoes? No, can we see you in the jungle? What's next? No?
No, no, no, no, no no.
And that's it.
What did your kids think? Did you watch it with them?
Well, they were really excited for me to go on the show.
Before I went on, and we love to dance around the lounge, remember that kind of thing. They was super pumped because they're like what mommy is going to be on TV and all of that.
But then obviously it was hard me being away from them, so I think that was the yeahsd FT a little bit like Mamma, when are you coming home? And then I slew them to Sydney and they were up there for a little bit. But it was really great because most of the time I actually was in Melbourne because I could train in Melbourne, which I was lucky about, so I got to be with them for school pick up and dinners and that kind of thing, and then I go back and train, but they I.
Couldn't watch the fok.
I just couldn't watch it, right, So I haven't really haven't watched it on TV.
I've just seen and I mean, you haven't watched it on television.
I just wasn't.
Yeah, I just knew obviously, I knew the way it went down, and I was just like, God, just too awkward. So my mum watched it with the boys.
What were you doing with me?
A video of it? I wasn't there. I couldn't watch that.
I just couldn't. I just found I find it so awkward and I just I was there.
I don't need to watch it.
I know what happened. You went to the Wolf on Jappel Street to get away from it. Yeah, fair enough, I would too. So the part of me that would not want to watch it, but the narcissist in me would be probably watching it with popcorn. And I've invited everyone I've ever met, so.
Really, no, I can't. Okay.
So then, so that was the first performance which they watched, and then they mum sent me a video of their reactions and my little boy was crying cute, so they loved it. And then the second performance, which was last night, I was putting the boys. Obviously, I was putting the boys.
To bed in my partner was home and I was like, I can't watch it.
Can you take a video of it and then show me snippets?
And he's like yeah, yeah.
But then my oldest son heard that it was on in the bedroom and he ran in and he watched it, and I came in and saw like a little snipper bit.
Yeah, my little little son hasn't seen it.
So I've got to actually go back and see. I haven't even seen them rejudging comments how it was all cut up. But yeah, obviously was there when it happened, So yeah, I'll go and watch it over the next few days.
Maybe went for to process, have a glass of red or something before you do it. Just calm the nurse, I think.
Obviously because people have tagged me and things to see my facial expresses and all that.
You know what happened.
Yeah, I was there.
Exactly how much torture do you need? Okay, So everyone of John's the podcats asked this last question, what is something from behind the scenes, something that we as an audience don't know about what it's like to do.
This show, probably how fun Sonya and Kris are behind the scene and how much they actually get involved with the cart and it's just like how much of them, Like Sonya is just like, yeah, they were telling jokes the whole way through, like they get up there obviously they're a lot earlier before like it goes live and see they gets it all.
And I just thought they were really sad.
So I think like their involvement in the show was really cool, and I thought that they did so much more than I thought that they would do as presenters and hostess.
So yeah, ively that I've watched a lot of shows live and I've worked on a lot of shows, and I can tell you that Sonya Kruker is so amazing like all the time. Like it's so bizarre to me because you kind of think of her as like she could if she wanted to be just this word perfect presenter who does her job and goes home. But she's so fun she's so kind and she's so empathetic, but she's also really kind of wickedly funny in a rude way.
That's he just reminded me of. She's so she's such a vibe and so funny.
She was saying things like she was making these jokes and like almost like she can't say that, but you can, but it's so hilarious and you're right, like she's so like kind, but then she's just got this funniness and like not caring attitude and she's not she's not a beever at all like that.
So yeah, can I just say I loved watching you on this show and thought you did so well. There's something about you that I always think is you represent us as real people. Like when I watch you do anything in your work and the way you present yourself, I can I think we as an audience see ourselves in you in some way and that's quite beautiful to watch.
So thank you, so nice, Thank you, thank you chat I've really enjoyed this fun.
Thank you well, glad I'm glad. I'm glad you're enjoyed it. They could be scary, so be really good.
You've been great to count to you.
Thank you, I love it. Look after yourself and enjoy chatting to the media.
Thanks say