Advertisement
Home Celebrity Celebrity News

EXCLUSIVE: Former Yellow Wiggle, Emma Watkins, shares her exciting new chapter and how she is happier than ever

''The best year of my life.'' - By Rachel Sharp
Emma Watkins with AWW
0 seconds of 1 minute, 6 secondsVolume 0%
Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts
00:00
01:06
01:06
 

โ€œI have one emotion: smiling,โ€ quips Emma Watkins to The Weeklyโ€™s photographer who is directing todayโ€™s retro Palm Springs-vibe shoot at the Berry View Hotel in the Shoalhaven region of New South Wales.

Advertisement

โ€œJust donโ€™t ask me to smile with my mouth closed,โ€ she qualifies with a laugh.

If smiling, chatting and sailing through photo shoots like a seasoned veteran are the skills Emma has on display today, theyโ€™re not perhaps the ones sheโ€™s best known for.

Theyโ€™d be singing, dancing and being a rockstar of the childrenโ€™s entertainment world.

Thatโ€™s why countless Wiggles fans โ€“ and their gobsmacked parents โ€“ were devastated when the now 33-year-old announced in October 2021 she was leaving the iconic troupe, despite being its most popular member.

Advertisement

Outsiders might have speculated that she was either eyeing up solo fame, or focusing on recovery after her very public battle with Stage 4 endometriosis.

There was even speculation she needed space after her marriage with fellow Wiggle (and for the record, still dear friend) Lachlan Gillespie ended.

Emma shocked the world by announcing her retirement from The Wiggles in 2021.

(Image: Julie Adams)

The truth, though equally interesting, is far less dramatic.

Advertisement

Long before she was Emma Wiggle or her most recent incarnation, Emma Memma (more on that later), she was Emma: scholarship-winning film school graduate chasing altruistic academic dreams.

After more than a decade in the same job, she simply wanted to loop back around to her pre-touring passions: film production and sign language.

Plus, she knew she couldnโ€™t keep asking Macquarie University for extensions on her half-finished PhD.

โ€œI know people were probably thinking, โ€˜oh, sheโ€™s going on to something elseโ€™, or that I was just having a rest, but it wasnโ€™t about that at all,โ€ says Emma, who followed performing arts high school with a scholarship to the Sydney Film School, then a degree from the University of Technology Sydney, before finishing a Masterโ€™s of Research at Macquarie University, investigating the fusion of dance, sign language and visual communications, which evolved into a full-time PhD before Wiggly life came calling.

Advertisement

After leaving The Wiggles Emma revisited her two pre-touring passions: film production and sign language.

(Image: Julie Adams)

Ten bullet train years later, when the pandemic delivered her first break from relentless travel in aeons, Emma realised something had to give.

โ€œMy PhD supervisor said, โ€˜Okay, youโ€™re getting to the crux of your research and you need to get serious, so whatโ€™s your plan?โ€™ I knew I had to focus.

โ€œThis is probably going to sound weird, but I initially started the PhD because I wanted people to take me seriously. And I wasnโ€™t being taken seriously then โ€“ being young, being female, being a performer, being a dancer. Now, I guess, it looks like the PhD is a step down, like โ€˜you were hereโ€™ [holding her hand high] with The Wiggles and now โ€˜youโ€™re hereโ€™ [holding hand low], but The Wiggles was a learning experience that provided knowledge for my studies. So, to me, it feels like Wiggles was Chapter 2 [after Chapter 1: Film School], and now this is a whole new chapter to bring some of those skills over and push boundaries.โ€

Advertisement

If Emma Wiggle was the star of her last adventure, then the hero of the next is Emmaโ€™s newest alter ego, Emma Memma, a dazzling red-haired, apricot-costumed character aimed at two-to-four-year-olds that is her PhD research brought to life.

Launched in July, itโ€™s the first project to be released by Emmaโ€™s production company, Apricot Sea, and according to its official bio, โ€œfocuses on a new generation of communication, where [Emma Memma] and her friends navigate challenges and adventure using sign language, choreographed dance narratives, gesture, mime, singing, speaking, listening, making craft and drawingโ€.

Naturally, itโ€™s already a hit.

Advertisement

The handful of videos unveiled on the Emma Memma YouTube channel since its release have clocked over a million views.

But commercial wins, Emma stresses, were never the focus.

โ€œWeโ€™re fortunate maybe to have experienced a level of fame, but Emma Memma has never been about success or wanting to sell music. The main driver has been the gap we see in the market for media thatโ€™s accessible for children and families with additional needs. Everyone in the team is enrolled in a Diploma of Sign Language, even Oliver (her new husband), its musical director. Right now, weโ€™re doing free meet and greets around Australia, and we have a television series ready to film, but really beyond that itโ€™s about us connecting deaf talent in other regions of the world.โ€

Advertisement

Ask close friends to describe Emmaโ€™s work ethic and theyโ€™ll tell you sheโ€™s competitive and that rest is not in her nature, two facts long-time bestie Elisabetta Denton happily confirms.

So itโ€™s little surprise Emma soon filled the touring-spaced void in her life with a series of short but intense work projects.

One of these, an original production called Reef School, on ABC Kids, combines high-definition underwater footage and scripted voiceovers to tell cute and clever stories centred on a make-believe aquatic community.

Emma narrates the series, which also stars TV Week Logie award winner Tony Armstrong, Shane Jenek (aka Courtney Act) and the late legendary Jack Charles, along with nine talented child actors.

Advertisement

โ€œItโ€™s really well put together and such a clever idea. I am just thrilled to be part of it,โ€ says Emma. โ€œIโ€™ve appeared on the ABC for 12 years during The Wiggles, but making content in their studios for the first time was a dream.โ€

Emma threw herself into new projects including a new show on ABC Kids called Reef School.

(Image: Julie Adams)

Fun as it was, though, Reef School hasnโ€™t introduced the acting bug.

Quite the opposite, Emma says. โ€œMy sister Hayley [Underbelly, Home and Away] is a really amazing actress because she understands the mechanism of connecting with an audience that way but โ€ฆ it just doesnโ€™t come naturally to me.โ€

Advertisement

That said, Emma did dip her toe into the family entertainment genre earlier this year when she appeared as Zombie on Network 10โ€™s reality competition The Masked Singer.

Despite a frankly admitted fear of singing that plagued her Wiggles run, Emma covered three well-known mainstream hits, including a rendition of Radioheadโ€™s gloomy โ€™90s classic Creep that won her rave reviews on social media.

While Emmaโ€™s disappointed she was knocked out early, she now realises she didnโ€™t change her very distinctive voice enough to go incognito.

โ€œI can be in a supermarket chatting to Olly and people, especially parents of children, will hear my voice from the next aisle then come round to look. But some of the people on that show โ€“ Sheldon Riley for example โ€“ have so much talent in terms of being able to manipulate their voice and camouflage it. I didnโ€™t change mine enough because I was so stressed about the singing.โ€

Advertisement

Of course, Emma Memma sings โ€“ the first album of 10 songs co-written by Emma and her husband was released in September โ€“ but her very young target audience and the fact the songs are centred on sign language means sheโ€™s more at ease performing them.

โ€œIt was scary but Iโ€™m so glad I did The Masked Singer. The showโ€™s musical director, Gary Pinto, is an absolute genius. He would give me a really hard vocal riff like I was Beyoncรฉ โ€“ who Iโ€™m so not โ€“ which Iโ€™d record on my phone and take home to Olly. Then heโ€™d play it on the guitar and slow it right down for me and teach me every note one by one.โ€

Her husband sounds like an incredibly patient guy. โ€œOh he is. Heโ€™s patient with a capital P.โ€

Advertisement

Emma knows her renewed work passion has given her purpose, but itโ€™s the love of her life, 34-year-old musician Oliver Brian, whoโ€™s provided perspective.

The couple, who married in May 2022, met on The Wiggles tour (Oliver, who plays numerous instruments, was part of its band).

They had their first dinner date on tour, too โ€“ right after Oliver checked with her ex-husband Lachlan that he didnโ€™t mind.

The latter, then dating his partner, Australian Ballet senior artist Dana Stephensen, of course gave the green light.

Advertisement

Before long, the four of them were dining together.

โ€œThat sounds strange, but being on tour is very different to being at home going to a nine-to-five job,โ€ says Emma. โ€œWe were all together, all the time. It would be very difficult if we didnโ€™t all get along. And I knew Dana before Lachy knew Dana. She is divine.โ€

Even today, the two families stay in touch and just days before our shoot, Lachlan sent Emma a video of his clan (Dana and Lachyโ€™s twins, Lottie and Lulu, two, as well as Danaโ€™s son Jasper, seven, from a previous relationship) singing her happy birthday, albeit haphazardly.

Advertisement

โ€œWe lived and breathed that Wiggles experience together, and if I was there without Lachy I donโ€™t know what would have happened. We were best mates and he brought out some of the most beautiful aspects of my performing career and probably my personality, so I couldnโ€™t imagine not talking to him. That would be weird.โ€

Much like Dana, Emmaโ€™s publicity-shy husband of seven months has a delightful everyone-who-meets-him-loves-him charisma.

โ€œOliver is now my favourite person in the world,โ€ agrees Emmaโ€™s friend Elisabetta, who is head of communications at Apricot Sea. โ€œIโ€™ve ditched Emma as my best friend for him. Heโ€™s so wise, so great at explaining things. He should have three PhDs.โ€

โ€œOliver is the favourite with everybody,โ€ Emma confirms. โ€œHeโ€™s quiet, collected. Just knows everything about everything. He reads more than me.โ€

Advertisement

More importantly, explains Elisabetta, Oliver is a calming influence.

โ€œBoth of them are very peaceful together,โ€ she says. โ€œTheyโ€™ve created their own little bubble in the country and itโ€™s really nice to see Emma so calm. She takes a moment to actually be at peace with him. And he makes her more creative.โ€

โ€œThatโ€™s true,โ€ Emma admits. โ€œI must come across as an extrovert and can be very confident, but usually Iโ€™d much rather be at home not doing anything. Thatโ€™s never happened to me before and itโ€™s been cultivated through being with Olly, because we can just be with each other and be happy. After all of the drama with my endometriosis surgery in 2018, there was some stern advice from health professionals that I needed to slow down. I was never resting, the adrenaline was never off and my body was breaking down. But when you grow up dancing and doing a million things, you donโ€™t worry about pain or exhaustion, you just go on.โ€

Advertisement

Sheโ€™s hardly put her feet up and chilled for the past year but ending the relentless touring then moving to the NSW Southern Highlands has made a world of difference to Emmaโ€™s physical health.

โ€œLife is more restful and that has changed everything,โ€ she notes. โ€œMy body is processing food better, itโ€™s detoxing better, and Iโ€™m learning to settle a little bit, even though Iโ€™m the kind of person who needs to be doing something all the time.โ€

Emmaโ€™s move to NSWโ€™s Southern Highlands has made a world of difference to her physical health.

(Image: Julie Adams)

Even their picturesque wedding, celebrated with family and friends on an historic estate near Oliverโ€™s hometown of Warrnambool in Victoria, was a laid-back affair.

Advertisement

Oliver Senior, the groomโ€™s father, drove the bride to the venue in his pride-and-joy black vintage hot rod car (the same one he loaned his son to drive his wife-to-be to a beautiful riverside spot for the proposal many months before).

โ€œOlly and I arenโ€™t very party-esque,โ€ says Emma. โ€œWe donโ€™t drink alcohol, so for our wedding we all had lunch and a cup of tea. Obviously, everyone had a great time, but the best thing for me was seeing everyone I cared about there in the one spot after not seeing them much for 10 years.โ€

The only friends missing were her Wiggles ex-colleagues who were โ€“ case in point โ€“ away on tour.

Advertisement

Both sets of parents factored into the newlywed coupleโ€™s decision to move from Sydney to Robertson, a historic town 145 kilometres south of Sydney.

โ€œMy parents live in Sydney, but they bought a property near Robertson a few years ago which we loved visiting, so Olly and I started looking at places in the area and fell in love with the first one we saw.โ€

As well as having space to build both a studio and vocal recording booth, it meant they could live in between both sets of parents.

โ€œOllyโ€™s parents are retired and have a caravan, so theyโ€™ve been up through our way a few times already this year. One of the reasons we left The Wiggles is because we werenโ€™t seeing our families enough, so itโ€™s been really lovely.โ€

Advertisement

Robertson has also given animal-lover Emma an excuse to expand her menagerie, though her two beloved miniature goats, Strawberry and Cream, are currently housed at a rescue sanctuary down the road until they have a sturdier fence built.

โ€œI go to these guys twice a day, let them out, feed them, brush them, then at night I put them to bed. Theyโ€™re only 10 months old, and their mum passed away sadly, so they follow me like Iโ€™m their mum and itโ€™s really sweet. We have a co-dependent relationship.โ€

Unlike Strawberry and Cream, the coupleโ€™s four dogs live with them at home.

Ditto the rabbits, chickens and cats; however, their six rescue horses are on a nearby agistment farm. Life, in short, is busy but her version of bliss.

Advertisement

โ€œThe Wiggles was my whole twenties and my everything during that time, but Iโ€™ve learned more about myself in the past year than the rest of my entire life. Itโ€™s just lovely to have the time and the flexibility to consider new things. Iโ€™ve been able to say yes to things I could never have done before. Now Iโ€™m like, โ€˜weโ€™re ready, whatโ€™s out there?โ€™ Honestly, itโ€™s been super beautiful. A beautiful year. Life is good.โ€ AWW

Reef School premieres on ABC Kids and ABC iView on November 14.

You can read this story and many others in the December issue of The Australian Womenโ€™s Weekly โ€“ on sale now

Advertisement

Related stories


Unwind and relax with your favourite magazine!

Huge savings plus FREE home delivery

Advertisement
Advertisement