All the big names to watch in 2024
As another year begins, here are the celebrity names with Melbourne links that are hitting their stride, and the famous faces who are enjoying a resurgence in 2024.
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The new year is looming large. As the clock ticks towards 2024, here are some of the celebrity names to watch in the next 12 months. Most have Melbourne links or have created marvellous Melbourne moments. Some are established and for some their star is still on the rise. All will be making news in the year ahead. Wishing everyone a happy and safe new year.
Seann Miley Moore
Miss Saigon was an extraordinary musical theatre event in Melbourne towards the end of 2023 and theatre goers saw a star is born moment with Seann Miley Moore. Moore played The Engineer in the production with their performance of The American Dream a stunning show stopping moment. Born in Indonesia, Moore moved with his family to Australia in 2003. They competed in The X Factor UK in 2015 and in The Voice Australia in 2021. Such an exciting rising star.
Sooshi Mango
The Melbourne comedy trio have ended the year on a viral high. A Christmas reel featuring Carlo Salanitri, Joe Salanitri and Andrew Manfre as their ‘ethnic mums’ characters has been played 112 million times with nearly 50,000 comments posted about the skit. The trio branched out in 2023, opening a restaurant, Johnny, Vince & Sam’s in Lygon Street, Carlton, and releasing a wine range. Sooshi Mango is a juggernaut that is not slowing down.
Esme James
The Melbourne based TikTokker and Melbourne University PhD candidate has found a huge audience for her ‘Kinky History’ content. Talk about finding an unexploited niche! James released a book, titled Kinky History, in 2023 based on her research into human sexuality through the centuries.
Sez
Sez (Sarah O’Neill) is a comedian, podcaster, producer and bog vlogger. Sez rates toilets for her TikTok and Instagram audience, scoring the loos for categories including room temperature, water pressure, floor state, bog roll, privacy and handwash. It is inspired madness and hilarious. Also a songwriter, Sez’s break-up songs and relationship musings in a category of their own; unfiltered and very direct.
Annie Knight
Melbourne’s Annie Knight became a social media sensation after claiming in 2023 to have been intimate with 300 people during a 12-month period. Her bold declaration led to her being labelled as Australia’s most sexually active woman, a title she cleverly embraced. The former Loretto Mandeville Hall student who went on to work in marketing, is making a fortune out of the adult subscription site OnlyFans, thanks to the curiosity generated from her tales about her enthusiastic dating life. She made headlines when she popped up in the Schweppes marquee in the Flemington Birdcage during Melbourne Cup Week and she is going to keep making waves in 2024.
Kylie Minogue
It is Kylie’s world, we are just living in it. Padam Padam put Minogue back on top and woke America up to her brilliance. Melbourne is her base and she is a national treasure.
K-pop stars Rose, Hanni Pham and Lily
K-pop is huge and several of the stars of the Korean pop scene hail from Melbourne. BlackPink’s Rose (aka Roseanne Park) is a superstar in Korea and worldwide thanks to the success of the K-pop girl group. Born in New Zealand, Rose moved with her family to Melbourne in 2004, aged 7. She attended Kew East Primary School and Canterbury Girls Secondary College before moving to South Korea in 2012 to pursue K-pop opportunities. She has more than 75m followers on Instagram.
Lily (aka Lily Morrow) performs with the K-pop girl group NMIXX. Lily was raised in Marysville and attended Alexandra Secondary College. Sadly, when she was 7, her family home in Marysville was destroyed in the tragic 2009 Black Saturday fires. Lily turned to singing to deal with that trauma. She joined NMIXX in 2021 and the group released their first album in early 2022.
Hanni Pham, 19, a Vogue Australia cover girl, is part of the K-pop sensation NewJeans.
She was born in Melbourne in 2004 and attended Sacred Heart Primary School in Preston. She moved to Korea in 2019 and joined NewJeans in 2021 and the group was officially launched in July 2022 and is enjoying massive success.
Ben Waddell
While his season of The Bachelors went by with little fanfare, Melbourne-born Waddell is a name to watch. He is a model, has TV ambitions and is active in the environmental sustainability space. At one stage several years ago he wanted to take legal action against movie star Zac Efron, claiming Efron had pinched his idea for a TV travel show. The legal action never eventuated.
Jimmy Bartel
The former Geelong AFL great keeps getting better as a radio performer. Versatile, likeable and switched on, he is part of 3AW’s footy coverage and has broadened his broadcasting skills covering the AW breakfast shift with Mark Allen during ratings breaks and also filled in on the afternoon shift during 2023.
John Farnham
Australia loves Farnsey. His documentary Finding The Voice was a hit in cinemas in 2023 and again when it screened on Channel 7. He is supported by the well wishes of millions of fans as he navigates his mouth cancer battle and recovery at his Melbourne home. Meanwhile, fellow Australian music legend Jimmy Barnes had fans on tenterhooks in December as he underwent heart surgery. His return to the spotlight will be hugely celebrated in 2024.
David Campbell
David Campbell showed just how accomplished he is as a live TV host when protesters stormed the stage at the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne during the Carols By Candlelight telecast on Christmas Eve. Campbell kept calm, reassured the audience that everything was under control, bought time for the crew resetting the next act, and then got the show back on the road. It was a ‘calm in a crisis’ moment that will be talked about for some time to come.
Marty Fox
Watch the star of this Melbourne real estate ace to rise in 2024. Fox, the slick dressing, Porsche driving founder of WhiteFox Real Estate, made an instant impact when he appeared as a guest judge on The Block in 2023. He was standing in for regular judge Neale Whitaker who was absent at times during filming due to his partner being ill. Fox looked like he had been doing TV for years and the audience loved him. The Block would be mad not to keep him on the team for the show’s new season set on Phillip Island.
Bianca Censori
Ms Kanye West who wears plush toys as fashion accessories. The former Carey Baptist Grammar student, who hails from the Melbourne suburb of Alphington, was revealed to have married the controversial rapper in January 2023. She is a key part of his chaotic life and will be a headline regardless of what direction their marriage and careers take in 2024. Despite living a jet setting lifestyle she remains close to her family. Her mother, Alexandra, and her sister Angelina were in Los Angeles with her and West last week.
Kyle Sandilands
The Kyle and Jackie O Show is going to blast into Melbourne in January after KIIS FM dumped its much loved and increasingly popular Melbourne breakfast show hosted by Jase Hawkins and Lauren Phillips on December 1. Sandilands talks a big game, the question is will Melbourne listeners want to tune in to hear it?
Marty Sheargold
Another radio riddle. Marty Sheargold shot his mouth off at the AFL Grand Final and, with encouragement from his superiors, left the game early. A couple of weeks later he disappeared from his Triple M breakfast show, eventually releasing a statement saying he was taking an extended break from radio to deal with his mental health. There will be plenty of interest in what Sheargold does and says when the radio year kicks off in mid-January. Sheargold popped up on social media just prior to Christmas having lunch with comedian mates Titus O’Reily, Tom Gleeson, Lehmo and Adam Rozenbachs.
Jacqui Felgate
There are more than a few people watching Jacqui Felgate’s appointment as host of 3AW’s Drive shift with interest, but she will be a success in the role. Felgate has built an extraordinarily connected and responsive community via her Instagram in recent years and it has turned her into a prolific newsbreaker, just what you need to be if you are helming a news shift.
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