Ricki-Lee Coulter sang her way into our hearts on Australian Idol back in 2004. But the man who has her heart is husband and manager, Richard Harrison.
The singer-songwriter met Richard, who at the time was running a personal training studio in Melbourne, through a mutual friend.
Speaking to Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O on their radio show, Ricki admitted that the attraction was there when she was shown a photo of him on Facebook.
“I was skulling a jug of beer…and I looked and just saw his face at the door and he saw me and smiled.”
(Credit: Instagram)A couple of months later, Ricki was out at Melbourne’s Esplanade Hotel after an AFL match with those friends drinking when she saw Richard.
“I was skulling a jug of beer…and I looked and just saw his face at the door and he saw me and smiled,” she recalled to the radio duo.
“He grabbed my hand, he took me to the bar, we had a couple of shots and then I think very soon after that we went back to my place.”
To make matters even more like a rom-com, the next morning she had to get on a plane to Sydney to film Australian Idol and had to kick him out of her apartment!
“He could see things from an outsider’s perspective that I couldn’t.”
(Credit: Instagram)Richard soon followed Ricki to Sydney and started to ask questions about her management. Not long afterwards, he took over as her manager despite having no experience.
“He could see things from an outsider’s perspective that I couldn’t. I was trapped in it. He lifted the cover for me.”
“He got me signed and writing with all my dream songwriters. All the things that should have been done at the start of my career.”
Richard proposed to Ricki in January 2013 at their Sydney apartment while playing Coldplay’s The Scientist on the piano.
“My heart started racing and I was taking deep breaths,” she said. “I started screaming and said ‘Oh-my-god’ about four-and-a-half thousand times!”
The couple tied the knot at Paris’ Château Bouffémont in August 2015 and the bride wore a stunning Joanna Johnson gown. The newlyweds were the last ones to leave the festivities at 5am.
The couple has decided not to have children.
(Credit: Instagram)“I wish we could have frozen time to stay in that moment,” Ricki told New Idea. “It was magical, absolutely a dream come true, the greatest day of my life.”
However for a time, she didn’t want to be a wife until marriage equality was legalised.
“I don’t know about marriage, I think there are a lot of issues with marriage in this country,” she told the Daily Telegraph.
“I would prefer it if everyone is allowed to get married before I do.”
However when it comes to growing their family, the Raining Diamonds singer isn’t interested in having children.
“For me, it’s simply: I don’t want kids. People on the street ask me, ‘When are you and Rich having kids?’ Stop!”
“My mum and my sister had babies around the same time. I love being an aunty. We’ll stay up all night eating pizza, we’ll wake up and have a tub of ice-cream for breakfast and send you back to your parents — bye.”
At the end of the day, Ricki says Richard is her “biggest supporter” but is also brutal when it comes to honesty.
“He’s my husband first and my manager second,” she told WHO in June 2020.
“So he’ll give me a cuddle and tell me I’m pretty and then he’ll be like, ‘but that song is s–t’. He’s very honest with me, brutally honest, and I am with him, and that’s why we work so well. I don’t have yes people in my life.”
This story was originally featured on our sister site, WHO Magazine.
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