Celebrities who used to live in Australia

Before they made it to the top, some surprisingly big names spent quality time Down Under. Here are the celebrities whose lives were indelibly changed by their time in Australia.

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It’s not just Aussies who have been shaped by the Wide Brown Land.

A surprisingly diverse range of big names have come by over the years – from the writers of yesteryear such as Mark Twain, DH Lawrence and HG Wells, who stayed for extended periods, to the film stars of today, who make fleeting red carpet and hotel balcony appearances in our capital cities during global publicity tours.

Those Hollywood stars tend to gush freely about how much they love Australia, but other celebrities speak with actual authority on the subject, having experienced the country before they became famous.

These are some of the big names from overseas who once called Australia home, when they were here, and what they did.

1950S

Future British Prime Minister Tony Blair was just 19 months old when he and his family moved to Adelaide in 1954.

They stayed three and a half years in the inner city suburb of Dulwich while Tony’s father Leo lectured at the University of Adelaide law school.

Tony Blair, pictured in 2000 – potentially the most powerful person who ever grew up in Adelaide. Picture: AP Photo/Alastair Grant

Addressing the Australian parliament in 2006, Blair said his earliest memories were of his experiences in Australia.

“I remember … taking showers under the garden hose in the heat on the lawn, visiting friends up country in the Adelaide Hills, and being chased by magpies as I ran across the open ground near our home – early training for later skirmishes with the media,” he joked.

Tony Blair's old house at 1 Ormond Grove in the Adelaide suburb of Dulwich. Picture: Sam Mooy

1960S

He’s known to fans around the world as the bass-slapping, funky-pants-wearing Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers, but fewer people know that Melbourne is the city of his birth.

Born Michael Balzary in 1962, Flea’s family moved to the US when he was four, but the now 57-year-old musician still retains his dual citizenship.

He also owned a 200 hectare property not far from the NSW south coast town of Moruya between 2004 and 2011.

Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers performs at Los Angeles Coliseum September 2016. Picture: Jeff Gross/Getty Images/AFP

Southern Australia also featured in the early life of the future king of England, Prince Charles.

He spent a semester studying at the Tmbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in 1966, an experience that he would later describe as the happiest experience of his entire schooling.

Australia would also be where Charles undertook his first solo royal engagements – 50 in all – during that time.

Prince Charles at Timbertop, 1966. While he received some ribbing about being a “Pommy bastard,” the future King has said he has the fondest memories of his time at the school.

In a 2017 biography by Sally Bedell Smith, Charles revealed the friendly attitude of Australians helped him get over his natural awkwardness.

“I took the plunge and went over and talked to people,” Smith quoted him as saying.

“That suddenly unlocked a completely different feeling, and I was then able to communicate and talk to people so much more.”

1970S

Elton John has strong claims to being an honorary Australian. Starting with his first visit Down Under in 1971, the Rocketman has racked up solid slabs of time here – and on his current tour he’s taken out a five-month lease on a mansion in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

Singer Elton John with his bride Renate on their wedding day, Valentine’s Day 1984.

He’s performed some 200 concerts in Australia over 18 tours, and his first marriage was celebrated in St Mark’s Church in Sydney’s Darling Point in 1984.

(Ten years later the church featured in Muriel’s Wedding.)

Elton recently backed up his love for Australia with a $1 million donation for fire relief efforts, saying: “To see what is happening here breaks my heart”.

1980S

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson lived in Australia in 1983 at the pivotal age of 18.

In that time he taught English, Latin and PE at Geelong Grammar’s Timbertop campus, and — so he told a Melbourne audience many years later — got around in “stubbie dacks” and developed a taste for VB.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has come a long way from his days at Timbertop. Picture: Peter Summers/Getty Images

Five years later, future Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey would commence his own gap year on the NSW central coast town of Warnervale.

McConaughey’s host families remember the then 19-year-old as harbouring ambitions to be a lawyer.

Actor Matthew McConaughey (L) as teenager having dinner with Ray and Eileen Crocker while he was in Australia as an exchange student.

Touring Australia late last year to help launch an eco-cabin for the start-up Unyoked, the Dallas Buyers Club star said Down Under ““has always had a special place in my heart” and its rugged beauty “demands you engage”.

1990S

Cameron Diaz was just three years away from her breakthrough role in The Mask when she worked as a model in Sydney in 1991.

The Charlie’s Angels star was just 19 when she lived for a few months in Kings Cross in 1991 – a place she described as “the cauldron” in a later interview.

Cameron Diaz in an ad filmed for Coca-Cola when she was in Australia, 1991

The California-born beauty filmed a television ad for Coca-Cola while she was here.

Australia in the ’90s also hatched another future American superstar: NBA player Kyrie Irving was born in Melbourne in 1992, before his family relocated to the US when he was two.

2000s

Like his dad before him, Prince Harry experienced an important part of his life education in rural Australia.

In 2003, when he was 19, the one-time third in line for the throne spent three months working as a jackaroo on a cattle farm in Queensland owned by friends of his mother, Princess Diana.

In a speech he gave in Dubbo during his 2018 official tour, Harry revealed he spent his time on the station “chasing cows through the bush and getting chased by countless bulls”.

Prince Harry with horse Guardsman while working as a jackaroo at Tooloombilla Station in central outback Queensland, November 2003. Picture: Annette Dew

But he wasn’t the only celebrity to have a formative experience in Australia in the early years of the 20th century.

Twilight star Kristen Stewart visited often when she was growing up (her mother is Australian) and learned to surf in Noosa, while Ed Sheeran has spoken about falling in love with Missy Higgins when he saw her perform on stage at the Sydney Opera House during a family holiday when he was all of 13.

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Fellow British pop star Olly Murs also had an awakening in Sydney during a three-month backpacking trip Down Under in 2008, when he was 24.

Staying in a “horrible little room” in Bondi with eight other people and trying to get by on $10 a day, the singer decided to fly home to the UK and audition for The X Factor – a decision that changed his life.

Nick Woodman testing the GoPro in 2013. Picture: GoPro

Tech entrepreneur Nick Woodman also had a life-changing moment while backpacking in Australia.

While surfing at Seal Rocks on the NSW North Coast in 2001 he had the idea for what would become the GoPro camera – a device that would revolutionise user-friendly action photography.

Woodman also recently revealed that he met Aussie rock icon Jimmy Barnes while he was here. And if that’s not a formative Australian experience, we don’t know what is.