’Everyone will jump on my bandwagon’: Australian pop star Behani on reality TV, fame and why she won’t reveal her age

With her eye-popping aesthetic, Australian singer Behani believes she is made for international stardom, as she unveils her upcoming reality series.

You’re welcome to ask how old she is, but you’ll most certainly get a fuzzy response from Melbourne-based singer and performer Behani. She doesn’t tell anybody her real age.

Her answer, and the number, depends on who is asking.

“That, my love, changes daily,” she tells Stellar with a cheeky smile.

“I could give you a different age in every interview. Today, I am 21 years old.” She qualifies her response: “I’m in my 20s. I can say that.”

Here’s what we do know: born Rebekah Behbahani, with a Persian/Italian background, she first worked as a management consultant with KPMG before deciding she wanted to devote her energy to building a career in music.

So far, it seems to be working. Having already notched up millions of views on YouTube for video clips of her pop and R&B-tinged songs – which she began releasing in 2022 – she is now signed with ADA/Warner Music Australia, recently collaborated with American rapper Tyga on her single ‘Comfortable’, and is currently promoting a new track called ‘Medicine’. Later this month she will join American singer/songwriter Ne-Yo, with whom she has also worked, on an arena tour across Australia and New Zealand.

Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar

“If you don’t love it, you just can’t be in this game at all,” she reasons. “You’ve got to love music. When I say that, you’ve got to love it with every cell in your body. When you’re dreaming, dream of that music. I just believe in myself.” While she points out that people have doubted her along the way, she declares: “I always end up proving them wrong. So I don’t really feel that I ever have to fight to prove my vision. My vision comes out of hard work and believing in what I’m doing. Eventually, everyone will jump on my bandwagon.”

While her age may not be something she feels needs sharing, audiences will soon get a fuller insight into her personal life nonetheless.

Stellar can exclusively reveal she will be at the centre of a new reality-TV series, Behind Behani, which will follow her at home and on the move as she crafts her ostentatious empire. “I’m still pinching myself to be honest,” Behani says of the eight-part project.

“I don’t really understand how it all came together. The cameras follow the movements and steps of my life so nothing is fabricated.”

Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar

While the reality TV experience wasn’t unfamiliar territory thanks to her sister, Venus Behbahani-Clark, appearing on the fourth season of The Real Housewives Of Melbourne in 2017, Behani says the music industry “is another world – a very challenging world. You can start off wanting to be a musician, and have dreams of wanting to make music.

“But it’s so much more than that. If you want a professional career in music, then you need to be really thinking about how you’re going to be running it as a business enterprise.”

Which means, ironically, that she has spent more time than she would’ve expected away from microphones and recording studios.

“The last few months I haven’t been singing – and I’m a singer. Now I’m at that place where I finally have my shows and my tours, and I get back to singing. But a lot of the time I actually wasn’t.”

As a former management consultant, she credits her previous corporate job with giving her the tools she needed to plough forward into risky new territory.

“I think that did help me with the procedural processes of building a team,” she tells Stellar, recounting the important questions she had to ask along the way.

“How do you build a team? What departments do you have? If there was a formula to know how to operate in the music industry, everyone would be successful. Talent is one piece. It’s an important aspect; you need to be talented. But there’s so much more.”

Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar

Away from showbiz, Behani is engaged to billionaire businessman and Collingwood Football Club vice president Alex Waislitz, who was previously married to Heloise Pratt – daughter of the late Australian businessman Richard Pratt and his wife Jeanne – and with whom he shares three adult children. Behani and Waislitz, 66, who began dating in 2017, have a four-year-old daughter named Storm.

The couple split their time between Melbourne, New York, Miami and Los Angeles. Behani’s lavish and glamorous jetsetting lifestyle features across her Instagram, which boasts more than 800,000 followers.

Unlike her, she says, her fiance is “quite reserved; while he’s loving my journey and very supportive of it, it’s very new to him.”

Waislitz will feature on Behani’s new show, though she admits, “It took us a minute to get used to being vulnerable and put ourselves out there. But it’s beautiful, too, because you get to see yourself from an outside, objective perspective.

“Motherhood and Alex are big character-building moments for me, and they help my artistry,” she adds.

“If I didn’t have Storm and I didn’t have Alex, I probably wouldn’t be the artist that I am.”

Behani describes Storm as “my heart, moon, sun and life teacher. Rebekah – and Behani – would not be this identity without Stormy. Stormy has taught me so much: to be patient in love, which has helped me a lot in the music industry. Storm is just my pride and joy, and I hope that one day she can take all of this and enjoy it.”

‘Behani is my alter ego!’ Behani and US singer, Ne-Yo. Picture: Supplied

During her interview with Stellar, which takes place just after her photo shoot, Behani is casually dressed in denim, an off-white turtleneck and a classic black blazer.

It’s a far cry from the public image she projects: unbridled, shameless and fabulously sexy. “It’s show business,” she says with a shrug. “You jump out of different themes, identities; Behani is my alter ego. I’m still Rebekah but Behani is another woman. I’m living two lives, for sure.”

Aesthetically, there’s a touch of early Paula Abdul in Behani’s look. And she agrees that her musical influences aren’t far off, either, ranging from Rihanna to Kylie Minogue and Madonna, of whom she says: “First and foremost, she’s been able to tackle so many prejudices and stereotypes. She’s an icon – and forever will be.”

And as for Minogue? “I really respect Kylie Minogue,” she says.

“She has built such an elongated career. It just goes to show: for women, there is no age barrier. You can do whatever you want, at whatever age, if you just believe in yourself.”

Behind Behani premieres at 9.30pm on October 16, on 7Bravo and 7plus. For more from Stellar, click here.