2003 flashback: The hottest trends and biggest events 20 years ago

From Warnie’s drug ban to a barrage of new reality TV shows, how many of these fads, fashions and famous faces do you recall?

Guy Sebastian beat Shannon Noll on the first Australian Idol in 2003.

It was the year Guy Sebastian beat Shannon Noll on Australian Idol, Rove McManus won his first of three Gold Logies, and Shane Warne was banned from cricket for taking a diet drug.

The US, UK and Australia invaded Iraq – looking for weapons of mass destruction that it later turned out didn’t exist – and Saddam Hussein was caught.

Iraqi Most Wanted playing cards like those issued to US soldiers in the Iraq war to identify fugitives of the Saddam Hussein regime. Picture: John Appleyard

And who can forget the deck of cards depicting the 52 “Iraqi Most Wanted” distributed to troops to help them recognise officials from Hussein’s regime?

For others, 2003 will be remembered as the year visiting hotel heiress Paris Hilton hooked up with Australian Idol finalist Rob Mills and set tongues wagging at the Melbourne Cup.

Australian Idol contestant Rob Mills and socialite Paris Hilton at the 2003 Melbourne Cup.

Gold Logie winner Rove McManus and then-girlfriend Belinda Emmett at the 2003 Logies. Picture: Richard Cisar-Wright

TV shows we were watching

Love it or loathe it, 2003 was the year reality television embedded itself in Australian culture, launching dozens of ordinary Aussies on the path to stardom.

Australian Idol led the way, with its inaugural 2003 season launching the careers of Sebastian and Noll, along with fourth-placed Paulini Curuenavuli and fifth-placed Mills.

A down-to-earth Tasmanian named Regina “Reggie” Bird won Big Brother in its third year, while the runner-up was Melbourne’s Chrissie Swan, now a star of radio and TV.

The Block debuted in 2003, with its original host, former Manpower stripper Jamie Durie, and smash hit Queer Eye for the Straight Guy began airing in Australia the same year.

Secret Life of Us actors Deborah Mailman (top), Claudia Karvan (bottom), Sibylla Budd and Samuel Johnson in 2003.

Blue Heelers cast members Jane Allsop, Ditch Davey and Caroline Craig.

Other shows we loved in 2003 included The Secret Life of Us, Blue Heelers, McLeod’s Daughters, Harry’s Practice, All Saints, Backyard Blitz, Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, Sunday (with Jana Wendt), A Current Affair (with Ray Martin) and Rove Live.

Singer Britney Spears helped popularise the exposed-midriff look in 2003. Picture: Getty Images

Cargo pants and short hairdos for women were in fashion in 2003.

What we were wearing

Bared midriffs were in, along with corset tops, baby-doll tops, low-slung pants, cropped cargo pants or track pants, bedazzled belts, fluffy jackets, flared blue jeans and long, thin scarfs.

Delta Goodrem was topping the charts when she was diagnosed with cancer.

Goodrem arriving at the ARIA Music Awards in 2003. Picture: Gareth Morgan

Songs you couldn’t get out of your head

Delta Goodrem hogged the charts in 2003 with a series of no. 1 hits, most notably Born to Try, in the same year she was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 18.

The biggest song of the year was Guy Sebastian’s Angels Brought Me Here, released after his Australian Idol win.

Other chart toppers of 2003 in Australia included Eminem, The Black Eyed Peas, 50 Cent, R Kelly and Christina Aguilera.

Jennifer Connelly and Eric Bana in 2003 film The Hulk.

Hit films

Finding Nemo was the biggest grossing film of 2003 in Australia.

Other big hits were Hulk, with Melbourne’s own Hollywood star Eric Bana, Catch Me If You Can, Chicago, Johnny English and Bruce Almighty.

Eric Bana, the boy from Tullamarine, in a scene from The Hulk.

Stars we loved

Eric Bana, Heath Ledger, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, Rose Byrne, Claudia Karvan, Samuel Johnson, Deborah Mailman, Cate Blanchett, Ben Affleck, Keanu Reeves, Will Smith, Eddie Murphy.

Mark Ricciuto, Nathan Buckley and Adam Goodes with their Brownlow Medals in 2003 after the second three-way tie in Brownlow history. Picture: Julian Smith

AFL champs

Premiers: Brisbane Lions, for the third consecutive year.

Brownlow Medal winner: Three-way tie for Nathan Buckley (Collingwood), Adam Goodes (Sydney) and Mark Ricciuto (Adelaide)

Norm Smith Medal winner: Simon Black (Brisbane)

Lleyton Hewitt reacts after winning a point in the Davis Cup final in 2003. Picture: AP

Glen Boss rode Makybe Diva to victory in three consecutive Melbourne Cups from 2003.

Other Aussie sporting heroes

Layne Beachley, Jana Pittman, Mark Philippoussis, Lleyton Hewitt, Todd Woodbridge, Makybe Diva, Glen Boss, Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett, James Hird, Robert Harvey, Matthew Lloyd, Chris Tarrant, Gavin Wanganeen, Michael Voss, Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell.

Wayne Carey began playing for Adelaide in 2003 after leaving North Melbourne in disgrace. Picture: Tom Miletic

Villains

Fallen hero Wayne Carey began playing for the Adelaide Crows after resigning in disgrace from North Melbourne, after his 2002 affair with teammate Anthony Stevens’ wife Kelli was exposed.

And prominent Sydney stockbroker Rene Rivkin was found guilty of insider trading and sentenced to nine months of periodic detention.

Top nightclubs

Honkytonks, Seven, Heat, Mercury Lounge, Club QBH, Revolver, Prince of Wales, The Lounge, The Metro, Salt Nightclub, Room 680, 21st Century.

Queen Elizabeth II chats with then Prime Minister John Howard before the opening of the Commonwealth summit. Picture: AFP

Politicians

Who was PM? John Howard

Victorian premier: Steve Bracks

World leaders: George W Bush, Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin

Australian of the Year

Professor Fiona Stanley, epidemiologist and child health expert

Former skier Kirstie Marshall breastfeeds her baby daughter Charlotte in parliament in 2003 before she was thrown out. Picture: Channel 7

Businessman Ron Walker and Premier Steve Bracks at the 2003 Australian Grand Prix.

Big events

Shane Warne copped a one-year ban from cricket after a drug test showed he used a banned diuretic – which his mum gave him to help shed weight.

MP and former Olympic skier Kirstie Marshall became the first woman to breastfeed in Victoria’s parliament, and was kicked out just before her first question time for doing so.

Special Operations Command troops stormed the Pong Su, a North Korean drug-smuggling cargo ship that sailed into Victorian waters with 150kg of heroin on board.

The Human Genome Project was completed, with 92 per cent of the human genome sequenced.

MySpace – the pre-Facebook social network – was launched in 2003, as did the controversial and anonymous image-based internet forum 4chan.