How Natalie Gauci became a fallen Idol but then found her Voice
When Natalie Gauci won Australian Idol in 2007 she admits she didn’t have the life tools to cope with what came next, but after losing her soul to drink and drugs, a chance encounter helped her to turn it all around.
Fiona Byrne
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Former Australian Idol winner Natalie Gauci has told how she lost her soul to drugs and alcohol but found the pathway to salvation on a bus in Berlin after an encounter with a spiritual healer.
Gauci, 38, won Australian Idol in 2007 and has re-emerged as a contestant on this season of The Voice.
“It is not about winning for me; having a baby changed my life and I wanted to get out there again and showcase who I am now,” said Gauci, a sound healer and mum of a seven-month-old son.
Gauci said she hadn’t had the life tools to cope with her Idol victory.
“Definitely there were drugs involved, alcohol, mixing with the wrong people, that was definitely part of it, and with that comes the confusion and there is not much clarity there to make the right decision,” she said of going off the rails after her win. “It comes with the music industry. The drugs are accessible, it is like party, party, party, keeping the adrenaline going, because you are on such a high during that time, and that is where I lost myself.
“I felt like I had lost my soul. I was using my ego to make decisions.
“I probably should have listened to my record label but I didn’t because I got caught up in drugs and stuff.”
Gauci moved to London and continued to create music, but her life transformed after a bus ride in Berlin.
“I was at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011 when I encountered my first enlightenment experience from a spiritual healer on a shuttle bus,” she said.
“I was feeling really down at the time and was really caught up in it all. He said to me the most important thing that people want in life is love and it was like time just stopped.
“Then he showed me this meditation.
I did the meditation for three months and it completely turned my life around.
“I got off the drugs, I got off the alcohol, everything, cold turkey and that was nine years ago.”
Gauci said she was far better prepared for The Voice than for Australian Idol.
“For me it is about being the best person I can be in all aspects of my life, including music,” she said.