Emma Watkins gave The Wiggles a whole new life, now she is helping women with a painful condition
Emma Watkins’ journey from Wiggly dancer to global children’s entertainment star was fast, but her journey through chronic endometriosis will take longer — and involve generous sharing
Confidential
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IT’S a mark of the huge influence that comes with being an official member of children’s music group The Wiggles that small boys come to the troupe’s concerts dressed in “Emma Wiggle” tutus.
“They dress up as me,” says Emma Watkins, the first woman Wiggle, and yellow-skivvy wearer. “They wear the hair bow, the bows on the shoes, the belt, the skivvy, everything.”
For Watkins, who, as her legions of young fans know, was determined as a child to become a professional dancer, the journey from unknown to household name in the preschool demographic has been fast.
Having grown up watching The Wiggles, Sydney-born Watkins auditioned for
a Dorothy the Dinosaur show in 2009, and joined the troupe she was “in awe of” to play dancing Fairy Larissa in 2010.
Around that time she met her husband, Lachy Gillespie, when they were both full-time Wiggly dancers. She could never have predicted this would lead her to become one of the four Wiggles stars about two years later, and a pillar of the group.
Now, Watkins is so well-known as a performer that an Emma Ballerina Dancing Doll has been
made in her likeness. The doll will be released by Hunter Toys in late June.
“I had no idea it was coming, I didn’t expect it,” says Watkins, 28, of the opportunity to take over the Yellow Wiggle mantle after the departure of original member Greg Page,
due to ongoing health issues, and following
the wave-making dumping of his replacement of five years, Sam Moran, both in 2012.
“I was quite overwhelmed myself, to be honest, for a couple of months. I was pretty taken aback by the grand scheme of it, maybe because we (she and Gillespie , who is the new Purple Wiggle) had been on the road with the originals (Jeff Fatt, Murray Cook, Greg Page and Anthony Field).
“When it did come time for the changeover (when Watkins officially took over as the Yellow Wiggle), I started to realise the responsibility involved.
“I’m so grateful for the position and
I absolutely adore being a Wiggle and (being) able to carry on that tradition of the music
and dancing.”
You would need nerves of steel, even as a career performer, not to feel a tiny bit daunted at the prospect of taking over a large part of the legacy of Australia’s best-known children’s group and biggest kids’ entertainment export.
Having been established after the four original members became friends during early childhood education study at Macquarie University, the 28-year-old outfit has played
to a reported average of a million people
a year — around the world.
“When the original Wiggles were in their heyday, they played 13 sold-out shows in Madison Square Garden to a quarter of
a million people there in three months,”
Watkins says.
The numbers now are still impressive.
“We played to over 100,000 Australians
last November and December,” Watkins says.
Watkins has been credited with bringing
a huge new audience to The Wiggles after
some parents turned off it during media controversy around Moran’s departure.
The group’s intensive touring schedule was cited as a reason for the retirement in 2012 of original members Cook and Fatt
(who have retained the business relationship), though some reports had it that public outrage around Moran’s axing had stolen some of the joy.
Being so much on the go with touring may be part of the reason it was not until early this year that Watkins decided to investigate strong pain she had endured for years.
As her Instagram followers were told in April, Watkins was diagnosed this year with stage four endometriosis after experiencing long-term symptoms. Stage four is at the severe end of the condition, which can be extremely debilitating.
Endometriosis is growth of endometrial tissue outside the womb that affects one in
10 Australian women — though the realities
of living with it are not widely understood.
Watkins had had abdominal pain since girlhood, but did not realise — as many endometriosis sufferers do not — that this was not part of a normal menstrual cycle.
“Even though the media had started to try
to shed some awareness on the subject, even when I was diagnosed I still didn’t believe it,” she says. “I thought it would just go away because I ignored it for so long; I didn’t realise it (advancement of the condition) was happening.
“There is lot more information around
about it now, there is a little bit more
awareness happening.”
Watkins has “endo” in common with 176 million women worldwide, who have an average diagnosis delay of seven to 10 years. Before being told she needed treatment for
it, she had never had a general anaesthetic.
Watkins’ fitness may have helped her recover from major surgery so quickly —
she missed only a month and a bit of Wiggle work and local touring.
Now, like other patients found to have stage four endometriosis, she will need
to be monitored and possibly treated again to ensure it
does not return to such
an extent that it has an
impact on her fertility.
Watkins has agreed to become an ambassador
for advocacy group Endometriosis Australia — whose brand colour, coincidentally, is yellow — and her willingness to share her diagnosis has already resonated with fans.
“The love on Instagram was unbelievable; even when I went onto Channel 9 (the Today show, to announce
a short break due
to the condition),
I didn’t realise the news had been out for about an hour or so, and when I got to the station and into the interview, I read that people had written letters, cards, sent gifts.”
She puts the feedback down
to the fact parents and kids tend to form a strong virtual bond with their favourite preschool entertainers.
“We share so much of our lives with them, and we feel we’re a part of their lives,” she says.
Watkins’ Instagram post of April 13, saying, “You may have seen this morning that I have been diagnosed with endometriosis … Thank you for all your support and sending love to all women suffering with endometriosis”, attracted 13,335 likes. A post-surgery hospital shot
of Watkins with flowers, thanking fans for
their good wishes, was liked 21,141 times.
“I really didn’t know what to expect,” Watkins says. “What was freaking me out leading up to the surgery was I was starting
to feel not great doing lots of shows.
“I lost so much blood
I had an (iron) infusion, and that’s when it started to hit me, only then
(that her condition was serious enough
to need intervention).”
Like other women who have spoken to Weekend about living with endometriosis, Watkins did not understand how severe
her condition was until surgeons informed
her after an operation to clear it.
“When we’re touring, all the women start going through their (menstrual) cycles together, so it’s hard for us to tell (if something else is at play
with an unusual cycle).
I just thought that by
adding more people into the cast, my body was going along on a longer cycle,” says Watkins,
who has stated previously that she and Gillespie
want to start a family.
“I had had really bad periods since school
(a common symptom for endometriosis sufferers) pretty much, but when (surgeons) are actually in there, they can see the severity. It seemed worse than I had thought, and they thought as well.”
When Weekend speaks with Watkins,
she has just returned to The Wiggles set and
is on a quick break from filming in the Hot Potato studios in Sydney.
The group and its entourage has been preparing for a US tour in which Watkins will return to full performing duties, minus any move that involves a back bend and could have consequences for tissue so soon after surgery.
“I’ve been recovering five weeks and I’m back on set already; it’s lovely to come back
and start dancing,” she says. “What has been good is the ballet, and being able to do little bits back again.”
Watkins’ aim through her work is to help get more Australian children moving — preferably dancing.
“I can’t do an arabesque (yet) … but I’m a busy body and have to move all the time,” she says.
“I like to be busy, and
it’s good to get my body ready to go
to the US.”
When readers pick up their newspaper
this morning, Watkins and her Wiggles colleagues (Gillespie, the new
Red Wiggle Simon Pryce and founding member and stalwart Field)
will likely be in
the air.
One benefit of working with a touring company so close-knit that they feel to Watkins like “a big family”
is that there is usually someone who can fill
in for a cast member temporarily unable to
do a physical move, in the rare case one has sustained an injury.
“It’s a great group that can jump into any role at any time; everyone’s ready to help out in any way,” Watkins says. “We are able to paint the show into what people can or can’t do, but generally we have no injuries. We’re very lucky.”
It was a twist of fate that led Watkins from her preferred dance style of classical ballet and into the other styles that helped her land a spot in The Wiggles troupe.
She grew up “just loving ballet and loving going to class however many times a week, doing exams, and at concert time, Mum sewing a tutu together. The whole element of dance really took over my life”.
An ankle injury meant she needed to take some pressure
off the ballet moves for a time, which gave Watkins the chance to learn other styles
of dance that did not require her to go en pointe. Even her Irish dancing skills get a spin on stage with the troupe.
After six years on the road around the world, as a star Wiggles attraction, Watkins is so certain she has found where she needs to be professionally that she is committed to staying in The Wiggles for the very long haul.
“Jeff wiggled till he was 60, and I made a pact with him that I’m going to try to get up there,” she says. “I’ve been with the company for almost eight years now, and I’m loving it.
“We’ve got so much to do; every time
we talk about a new project there’s another
one, and another one after that.”
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