Natalie Gauci
Natalie Gauci was the 2007 winner of Australian Idol.
Gauci was expected by most to be eliminated at the final 9 stage, when Today Tonight ran a smear campaign against Australian Idol that accused 7 of the 9 remaining contestants of being members of Hillsong Church and of rigging the competition. Natalie Gauci, alongside eventual 3rd placed Carl Riseley, were the only 2 not named, and as such she received a lot more votes than she did previously, effectively rigging the competition in her favour.
In the final, Gauci was up against Matt Corby, who was 5:1 on to win the competition, with few giving Gauci any chance. She nonetheless won the contest, although many have suggested that Australian Idol itself lied about who was the winner so as to avoid any hints that they had cheated in the light of Today Tonight's smear campaign.
Throughout the show, Natalie Gauci was disliked. She was eliminated at the semi final stage, but was allowed back as a "Wild Card", where the judges of the contest allowed 4 contestants who they felt were good to be allowed back at the final 24 stage. Carl Riseley was another wild card.
Whilst the rules of the contest were that you performed covers of songs and kept the original lyrics intact, Gauci regularly changed the lyrics and the entire tempo of the song to her way of doing it. Whilst some people liked this, many people did not. One of the bands which she covered, The Divinyls, were so upset at her changing the lyrics and style of their song "Boys in Town" that they went to the press about how upset they were about it. Australian Idol tried to fix this problem by inviting The Divinyls to play at the final night, but this only made things worse.
Gauci was often compared with fellow female contestant Tarisai Vushe, who, until the smear campaign ran, was the favourite of the contest. Popularity contests were regularly run to compare the two, with Vushe the more popular at every stage of the competition. Nonetheless, Tarisai had a 2nd smear campaign run against her which accused her of being fake, and as such Gauci does not have either smear against her and has been more popular.
After winning, Gauci's single debuted at number 1, as have winning singles of all of the winners of the contest. Hers, however, then dropped quickly out of the charts and overall has become the worst received single in Australian Idol's 5 year history. Her album became the only album in Australian Idol history not to debut at number 1, and the only album not to reach number 1, and also was by far the least popular album by an Idol winner in history. Gauci also had unpopular tours, with other contestants such as Matt Corby singing alongside her in a bid to try to increase popularity.
Natalie Gauci's album, titled "The Winner's Journey" (the same name as the album released by 2006 winner Damien Leith) debuted at number 2 and went down from there. Whilst it was certified platinum in Australia (70,000 units), this was done on the sly. While 70,000 units were shipped in the first week to record stores, only 11,489 were actually sold. Records suggest that it never actually sold 70,000 copies, let alone any more.