The Aussie singer recalled the low point of her life just as she hit number one in charts and how she bounded back
Singer Delta Goodrem has spoken of the moment she woke up in a cold sweat with a terrifying premonition – before she was even diagnosed with cancer.
The health diagnosis came just as she had landed a number one single and album as a teenager, changing her life completely. Neighbours star Delta was signed to Sony Music at the age of 15 and released her debut album, Innocent Eyes in 2003 while she was starring in the Aussie soap opera . Down Under it topped the ARIA Albums Chart for a huge 29 consecutive weeks. In the UK Innocent Eyes was made it to number 2 in the charts and spawed a succession of hit songs such as Lost Without You and Born To Try. But this success coincided with the hardest time in her life.
Delta told the Begin Again podcast: “I went to bed, and I woke up at 3:31… I basically had a nightmare and sort of like a very dark figure came to me on a grave with a note. At 3:31, I woke up drenched. I was head to toe, like I’d been in the ocean, and I was frozen with fear, completely frozen.”
She added: “My mum and Pete, my product manager, they booked me into the hospital on Monday. They were like, ‘let’s just let’s just book her in on Monday. She’s telling us something’s up.’ On Sunday, I was on the front page of the national paper for the first time now – we had our third number one single, we’d just broken our first record. Album was number one, in the UK we just debuted at number two, and I was on a flight that week to head to the States.
“And then going in down the tests, was a little overwhelmed with these biopsy needles going into my neck and I’d gone in by myself, just ran into the doctor that they’d booked… I saw it on his face as well… I didn’t know the words ‘cancer’ at all, but I did see it in his face, yes.
“Went back to the studio and then, by night time there was a knock at the door. My mum walked in and then my brother walked in and I said, what’s wrong? And they said, we have to take you to the hospital. And I said, ‘why? Why?’ And that was the first time I heard ‘they think you have cancer.’ I was number one on the chart, singles, albums… And then my whole world changed.”
Delta, was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in July 2003, and admits at the time the news felt like a “death sentence” but doctors began work straight away.
She also credited fans for providing her with messages of support which gave her strength. Elton John called her with a good luck message on her first day of chemotherapy.
Speaking to Davina McCall who recently had a brain tumour, Delta also spoke of the impact that time has on her life and the path to recovery.
She said: “I wouldn’t say that I came back to myself until many years later. And I don’t know if you feel this, but I feel it’s like a bomb goes off in the house. A lot of shrapnel gets hit, families are impacted, people’s lives change. You know, mum and dad didn’t cope as well with having, you know, so much attention in a regular, lovely, loving family house, having people project on them or us or, you know, a lot, a lot, a lot of intensity. And that intensity then came with a lot of being lost and life looking different. And, me trying to get back to where I was, but everything was different. And I wasn’t the longhaired piano playing girl, you know, it just was very different after that chapter.”
The radiation treatment effected her throat and meant she had to start again with her singing and her career. She was unable to tour her second album in 2004 but continued to make music and was a coach for eight years on The Voice Australia from 2012 to 2020.
And she is is positive about how her life worked out.
She said: “I think that it was a really amazing reset. Even just just getting back to that silence and listening rather than talking and just getting that clarity of like.
“I just started getting rid of just anything that wasn’t me. I just started to get back to my very natural, authentic, authentic self. And that chapter was essential to my life again, that was like, I can’t actually imagine being where I am without that moment that happens.
“I’ve had wonderful, amazing chapters. Nothing I would change to be where I am today. But at that time I was still quite hard on myself, and I think I had to learn to let go, move on from everything.”
* The full interview with Delta is in the latest Begin Again podcast with Davina McCall, out now.
