Jess Mauboy was just 16 years old when she stood on a makeshift stage in the middle of the desert to audition for the 2006 season of Australian Idol.
A few months later, after she had performed on stage as part of the top 11, judge Kyle Sandilands told her she needed to “lose the jelly belly” if she was going to succeed in the industry.
Now, 20 years later, Mauboy has reflected on the “hurtful” impact of those comments and how it has impacted the way she approaches her role as a guest judge and mentor on the current season of Australian Idol.
Listen to Jessica Mauboy on a new episode of Something To Talk About below:
“I was so young and I’d never had this put on me before,” she recalled on this week’s episode of the Stellar podcast Something To Talk About.
“My mum never said that to me, my dad never said that to me, my sisters never said that to me and I never got it at school. No-one ever commented about my body.”
While the now 36-year-old has built an impressive career spanning singing, performing, acting and TV presenting, the remarks still haunt her today.
“The comments Kyle made will be forever attached to everything I do,” she told host Sarrah Le Marquand. “Just talking about this, I felt like a little girl again.”
“I felt like that 16-year-old girl thinking that I don’t know what to do with that comment,” she continued. “What am I supposed to do? I’m 16 and that’s what I’m here for, I’m here to learn and I’m here to understand but how in-depth is it about my appearance? Isn’t it a singing show?”
Mauboy, who would go on to become the runner-up on her season, felt like she just had to stand there and take the comments.
“It’s awful, it’s bullying, it’s hurtful and now that someone’s put that in my mind, I’m going to obsess about it,” she recalled thinking at the time.
“If you’re not strong enough or you’ve never been taught how to stand up for yourself, or love yourself, it can be a very scary place.”
Listen to Jessica Mauboy on a new episode of Something To Talk About below:
While the ‘Little Things’ singer credits Kyle’s comments with giving her the thick skin she needed to navigate the music industry, she’s extra cautious about how she speaks to the contestants on this season of Australian Idol as a guest judge and mentor.
“I have to be very careful because I know what it felt like having been on the show and having Kyle call me a jelly belly,” she said. “That cannot go on.”
“So I think we need to hold people accountable and be mindful of what we’re saying – and who we’re saying it to.”
See the full shoot with Jessica Mauboy in a new issue of Stellar, out today in the Sunday papers.
For more from Stellar and podcast, Something To Talk About, click here.