Kate DeAraugo: How Winning Australian Idol Fueled Her Drug Addiction

Australian Idol winner Kate DeAraugo has opened up about how winning the third series of the enduring reality TV singing competition fuelled and funded her drug addiction. 

The Australian Idol 2005 winner, 39, found herself at rock bottom in 2017 after pleading guilty to possessing crystal meth, drug driving and weapons offences. 

Avoiding conviction, the star was placed on a community corrections order and has since made every effort to rehabilitate herself and transform her life. 

She is now seven years sober from the highly addictive drug, and is opening up about her experience to help others struggling with addiction.   

‘Do I blame winning Australian Idol for my drug addiction? I will say that it probably gave me the means to use way more drugs and create a bigger habit quicker than I would have – had I just been a normal 18-year-old doing normal 18-year-old things,’ the singer said on TikTok. 

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Australian Idol winner Kate DeAraugo (pictured) has opened up about how winning the third series of the enduring reality TV singing competition fuelled and funded her drug addiction

The Australian Idol 2005 winner, 39, found herself at rock bottom in 2017 after pleading guilty to possessing crystal meth, drug driving and weapons offences. Pictured in 2005

‘But do I blame them for my addiction?’ Kate asked rhetorically in the video posted on Saturday. 

‘I can’t. I was an addict way before any of that,’ she said. 

The Bendigo-born star admitted she engaged in ‘heaps of other really unhealthy and unmanageable behaviours,’ from a really young age.  

‘Starting with food,’ she said. 

Kate has previously spoken about the binge eating disorder which she suffered throughout her high school years. 

Speaking on her own podcast Why Do I Feel This Way? in 2023, Kate said she began to engage in binge eating from the age of five.   

‘That was my first way of regulating those emotions and those out of control feelings of not being comfortable in my skin.’ 

Kate was the third ever winner of Australian Idol. 

In a new TikTok, Kate revealed her post-Idol fame gave her the financial means to develop a full-blown addiction

Kate said that she ‘wasn’t introduced to drugs properly until after the show happened’ in 2005

Kate said that she ‘wasn’t introduced to drugs properly until after the show happened.’ 

‘That is where my addiction really took off, but I truly believe that it would have happened one way or another,’ she said. 

‘So as easy as it would be to blame Australian Idol and/or the music industry for my addiction, I just can’t because I don’t believe that’s true.’ 

After winning Idol, Kate signed to SONY BMG records and released her debut single Maybe Tonight in November 2005. 

The single debuted at No.1 on the ARIA charts and went platinum, as did the singer’s debut album, A Place I’ve Never Been. 

She went on to join the multi-platinum selling Australian girl group The Young Divas, alongside fellow Idol stars Ricki-Lee Coulter, Paulini, Emily Williams, and Jessica Mauboy, before disbanding in 2008. 

‘Despite what some people may think I actually don’t blame anyone,’ Kate added in the video caption. 

‘I’m five years clean and sober,’ she previously told Shannon Noll’s Idol Talking podcast in 2023, as she marked the sobriety milestone.

She went on to join the multi-platinum selling Australian girl group The Young Divas, alongside fellow Idol stars Ricki-Lee Coulter, Paulini, Emily Williams, and Jessica Mauboy, before disbanding in 2008. All pictured 

‘Despite what some people may think I actually don’t blame anyone,’ Kate (pictured at Sydney Downing Centre District Court in 2015) said in a TikTok posted on Saturday

‘Addiction is a topic that should be talked about really openly and I think still in this country we are not very educated about it,’ Kate said.  

‘My life went on a bit of a left field journey and I did some things and went some places that I never wanted to, or did not intend to, but it is just where life led me.’

‘Coming back from that, having to really turn around and stop and look at yourself and look at your life and take responsibility for your life decisions is probably the hardest and most terrifying thing I have ever done,’ she added. 

Kate says she realised her life had to change after catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror one day.

‘I was bone thin, my face was messed up and I was alone. And I looked at myself and thought, “Who are you?” Call it a moment of sanity or divine intervention, but I knew … if things didn’t change, I was going to die.’ 

She called her mum, who took her home. A month later, she used drugs for the last time and has now been off narcotics for more than seven years.