Natalie Imbruglia opens up about having a baby alone in her 40s

In a revealing interview, Natalie Imbruglia opens up about life after her divorce from Daniel Johns, losing and regaining her confidence as a singer, and her first year with her son.

After 30 years in show business, Natalie Imbruglia knows failure can be as critical as success.

“People I’ve met in my industry who’ve just gone from strength to strength are not necessarily the nicest people,” Imbruglia tells Stellar from her home in the British countryside, over a Zoom call that tests the muscle of her rural wi-fi.

“As a human being, having highs and lows in my career is a really good leveller.”

As the part-time recluse Imbruglia returns to the spotlight with her sixth album, Firebird, she admits the record nearly didn’t exist. Paralysed creatively by a bout of writer’s block that stretched for over five years, she was ready to quit music and return to her first job: acting.

“I genuinely thought the universe was trying to tell me something,” she says

“That it’s time to hang your hat up.”

“As a woman, my road less travelled is not something for you to pity. This is me. I’m strong, I make my own decisions and my own choices.” (Picture: Simon Procter)

Imbruglia landed the role of Beth Brennan in Neighbours in 1992; two years later, she left the show and relocated to the UK to pursue her acting dreams. Instead, she found herself signing a global record deal.

After several years of hustle and songwriting, she became an instant pop star with 1997’s ‘Torn’, a track that had already been released by three other artists before Imbruglia made the tune her own. It remains one of the most-played songs on global radio of the past 30 years.

Her debut album, Left Of The Middle, would sell over seven million copies.

By 2009, on the back of her first greatest-hits album, Imbruglia released her fourth studio album, Come To Life. As well as a lead single written with Silverchair’s Daniel Johns before their divorce, the album featured some new songs written by her friend Chris Martin of Coldplay, giving it major commercial appeal.

Despite reviews calling it some of her finest work, the album was only released in Australia and New Zealand. Her label shelved the album in the UK – her biggest market. The album’s botched rollout destroyed Imbruglia’s confidence.

Figuring that her music days were over, she relocated to LA and studied acting for two years – as well as Neighbours, she has also starred in the 2003 Rowan Atkinson comedy Johnny English, Australian indie film Closed For Winter in 2009 and comedy-drama Among Ravens in 2014.

“When I first moved to the UK, I wanted to be an actress before my music took off. I thought maybe acting [was] what I was meant to be doing. I loved studying the craft of acting, and I made some wonderful friendships, but it made me realise how much I love singing and that it was really what I wanted to be doing.

UK-based Natalie Imbruglia during her visit to Australia with her son Max in December/January. (Picture: Supplied)

“I’m not saying I won’t act again, but I appreciated the gift I have in having a voice.”

Her next album, 2015’s Male, featured her cover versions of songs originally performed by male artists. Imbruglia admits that recording other people’s songs was a result of being unable to write her own, and she was still licking her wounds after Come To Life.

“It was a big blow,” she tells Stellar. “I just lost my confidence in writing. I tried, I couldn’t sing one melody.”

Agreeing to a songwriting trip to Nashville in 2018, Imbruglia initially struggled to pen anything she was happy with. “I was crying every night, writing terrible songs. No discredit to the people I was writing with, I was just finding my feet again.”

A frustrated Imbruglia forced herself to listen to her own music, including her personal favourite, 2001’s White Lilies Island, the follow-up to her debut album.

“I was so terrified, I had to play songs I’d written and go, ‘You did that, you wrote that, you can do this.’ I had to remind myself. Which was hard, I don’t usually put my own music on.”

Finally she wrote a song she adored, ‘When You Love Too Much’, and the creative floodgates opened.

“I just had all this confidence again. It’s a good life lesson, really, for people who have a wobble or a moment where they think, I can’t do this. If you just keep going, there is an energy about showing up.”

Before long, Imbruglia was finishing what would become Firebird. One song, ‘Nothing Missing’, saw the singer express something she’d been trying to verbalise since her split from Johns in 2008 after four years of marriage.

“I spent years after my divorce trying to fix myself, or fill a void with the things that society expects: meet the guy and have the family. Obviously, my path was a different one but, even before Max [her now-one-year-old son] was born, I realised there was nothing missing, ever. It was a massive epiphany, and very empowering.

Natalie Imbruglia with her baby Max in late 2019. (Picture: Supplied)

“It took a long time to realise that, actually, I was fine all along. I just needed to relax into that and be OK with it.”

Imbruglia, 46, knows there’s always interest in her dating life (“I don’t know why, it’s not very exciting”) but refuses to play the usual fame games. “As a woman, my road less travelled is not something for you to pity,” she says.

“This is me. I’m strong, I make my own decisions and my own choices. Some people don’t stick to social norms, and I’m one of those people. That’s something to be proud of.”

In October 2019, Imbruglia announced she had given birth to her son, Max Valentine Imbruglia, conceived via IVF using donor sperm.

“Becoming a parent is the most incredible thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was a little girl. It’s given me a sense of peace. But I’m also aware it’s not for everyone. There are stigmas out there for women that if they aren’t parents what does that mean for them?

“I’m also aware of the struggle a lot of women are still going through trying to attain that and what it feels like to be left behind. It’s important to acknowledge all the women out there, including the ones going, ‘Ugh, another mother talking about how happy they are.’”

There’s already been online debate about who the father may be; Imbruglia is hoping the #MeToo movement will flow down to women not facing intensely personal questions.

“It’s a private matter. I’ve said all I want to about it. I can’t tell you how many times at the start of my career I was asked things like, ‘Do you think the way you look is why you are where you are?’ All sorts of things that were awful and I was expected to answer them.

“At photo shoots it was, ‘Wear this, wear that.’ If I didn’t want to wear a dress I was seen as difficult or the ‘Diva from Down Under’. Really? Because I don’t want to wear a dress? I’ve come across it a lot, so I welcome the change for women and young girls coming up through the industry, that they won’t have to deal with that. It’s about time.”

Natalie Imbruglia stars on the cover of this Sunday’s Stellar.

Imbruglia managed her annual trip home to visit her parents on the New South Wales Central Coast last Christmas, and it involved a stint in quarantine.

“[Being in quarantine] was actually a very bonding experience with my son. I had a balcony and a kitchenette, a lot of care packages dropped off. I know some people couldn’t even open their windows, but I just want to flag that was purely luck, I didn’t have any special treatment.”

Imbruglia and Max do weekly Zoom calls with her parents, and while she’s not thrilled with the influx of paparazzi in her beloved Byron Bay, she still cherishes getting back home.

“I love Australia. It’s my bolthole. I would come home more if I could. It can be tricky with work, but it’s like having two homes.”

A full Australian tour is something she’s still never done but Imbruglia learnt early on nothing is assured in the music industry.

“Never underestimate how crippling those highs and lows are to go through, especially on a public stage. Writing my second album [White Lilies Island] was such a massive achievement for me. I can look at footage of that time and think, oh, baby Nat. I just want to give her a hug. It was a lot.

“I know people at the time were going, ‘It’s not ‘Torn’’, but I still get people saying that album saved their life. That’s who I make it for. I’m very blessed to have an audience that lets me know they really appreciate what I do.”

Firebird is out September 24. Imbruglia’s new single ‘Build It Better’ is out now.