‘Those hurtful comments from Idol stayed with me’

Jessica Mauboy and Guy Sebastian look back on Australian Idol’s most brutal moments and discuss why they will be doing things differently as coaches on The Voice Australia.

Singer Paulini being body-shamed for her gold dress on Australian Idol in 2003 became a water-cooler moment across the country.

Now, 18 years later, the footage has recirculated on the modern water-cooler circuit: social media.

“It was disgusting what was said to Paulini.” (Picture: Australian Idol)

The scene when the reality show’s “nasty judge” Ian “Dicko” Dickson told a 21-year old Paulini she needed to “choose more appropriate clothes or shed some pounds” has gone viral on TikTok, with incredulous gen-Z viewers expressing their disbelief that such an incident passed as entertainment on prime-time Australian television before many of them were even born.

Guy Sebastian, the eventual winner of that first series of Idol and now a coach on the current season of The Voice, recalls the evening that he, Paulini and the other contestants returned to the house the night of filming.

“It was disgusting what was said to Paulini,” Sebastian tells Stellar On Friday.

“It has aged so badly. I was there that night when she was at the house crying after the show finished. At that time you had the ‘nasty judge’ culture on TV; there was always the Simon Cowell-type figure. That was the format and that was encouraged. That’s why some people were tuning in – ‘What is Dicko going to say this week?’

“There was too much reliance on drama and bickering. They’ve got the balance right this year.” (Picture: Jonathan Ng)

“But Dicko was never ‘cancelled’ at the time; [the incident] didn’t really make it past one week of the news cycle. Seeing that footage now makes you realise how much the culture has changed. Things like that are called out now.”

Next to Sebastian in the red chair this year is fellow Idol alumnus Jessica Mauboy, who tells Stellar On Friday that she copped her share of blowback from judge Kyle Sandilands over what she wore in the 2006 season. She agrees the feedback left some scars.

“That brutal honesty sticks with you forever,” Mauboy says.

“It’s how you’re able to use it and control it. Those comments from Idol, they still stay with me. I was so young – I was 16, I still had a lot to learn. I grew up rough; I can take all that messaging, even though it does hurt. But I knew I was going to become something else.”

Find more exclusives in this Sunday’s Stellar.

The experiences have made Mauboy and Sebastian consider their comments when giving feedback to The Voice hopefuls.

“If you’re not strong enough to process that information, it can break you,” Mauboy explains, “And what we’re seeing today is you can’t just point a finger at someone, because some people can’t take it.”

Sebastian says he’s pleased they’re part of a show that offers feel-good viewing – and the high ratings suggest audiences feel the same.

“The positivity is one of the things I love about The Voice, and where it started to lose it a bit last year was there was too much reliance on drama and bickering. They’ve got the balance right this year.”