This week Ricki-Lee Coulter shared some news on social media about her latest single, 'On My Own'.
But before revealing the source of the update, the 37-year-old singer told fans she had a 'little secret' to share, causing the comments section to fill with speculation she was pregnant.
"I'm so hoping it's a baby announcement as you'll be an absolutely amazing mother hands down amazing," one fan wrote.
"But we also know how much it annoys you when people ask when you're having children. So I'll just continue to sit here quietly hoping!!"
This comment and other's like it didn't go down well with the fans who support Ricki-Lee's honesty about not wanting to have kids.
"People… stop asking if it’s a baby… she has made it very clear she doesn’t want kids," a fan wrote.
"Kids aren’t for everyone and some people have made the decision to not have them and that’s perfectly ok! So Stop asking! It’s rude!"
Eventually, Ricki-Lee followed up to confirm that her 'little secret' was in fact to do with the launch of the breathtaking video for 'On My Own', filmed while on location in New Zealand with her husband and manager, Richard Harrison.
And while not responding to the latest round of pregnancy speculation, she posted a long statement about how she has always "done things a little bit different" and had to "take care of myself". She explained the meaning behind her powerful new song and how she doesn't "expect anything from anyone".
It’s hard to believe it has been 19 years since Ricki-Lee Coulter’s sonorous voice captured the nation’s heart on the second season of Australian Idol.
Despite coming seventh on the series, Ricki-Lee managed to leverage her reality TV fame and launch a career that still stands today – an achievement many before and after her struggle to do.
Ricki-Lee discusses her song ‘Unbothered’ on The Project. Post continues after video.
But with that fame has come an intense interest in her personal life.
And one topic that continues to resurface is the 37-year-old’s decision to not have children.
In an interview with Stellar Magazine in 2019, the singer admitted once more: “I don’t want kids.”
“It’s a completely personal decision,” she told the publication. “You can’t tell people how to live their lives. You don’t know what people are going through, if they can’t have kids, or are trying, or have lost a baby.”
Ricki-Lee has been married to her partner Richard Harrison, who is also her manager, for close to nine years.
“For me, it’s simply: I don’t want kids. People on the street ask me, ‘When are you and Rich having kids?’ Stop!”
The singer said she adores being an aunty and a sibling for her 13-year-old sister, but she also enjoys returning them.
“My mum and my sister had babies around the same time,” she explained. “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.”
It isn’t the first time she has made such admission.
In an interview with radio duo Fitzy and Wippa back in 2014, the singer reflected on how her unconventional upbringing influenced her decision to not want kids.
“I’m the eldest of like 30 grandchildren, my mum is one of like, fifty thousand kids. I was the eldest of all these grandkids and I was the one looking after them.
“My mum had me when she was really young and so I was dumped with whoever – aunty or friend or cousin, who would take me while she went out partying, being an 18-year-old.”
Ricki-Lee has also spoken about her upbringing candidly – one that was punctuated by addiction.
“I don’t have an addictive personality, so I sat back watching my parents partying all the time and I grew up knowing that feeling of resentment and watching them thinking, you’re an embarrassment. And I hate what you’re doing and I hate the way you’re acting and I hate the way that you forget about me when this is happening,” she said on the Thinkergirl Podcast in 2017.
“And I remember all those feelings, they were so strong when I was growing up. I had a real issue – in my late teenage years when I was really becoming a woman and coming into myself – with the way they were living their life.
“And I remember all those feelings, they were so strong when I was growing up…
“I have a really grossed out attitude towards drugs because I have seen a lot of it in my life. I grew up watching my family, and I thought, I never, ever want to be like you.
“I’m never the messy one, I’m always together. I don’t want anyone to look at me through the eyes that I looked at my mum and dad when they got hammered.”
Despite a backdrop of dysfunction, Ricki-Lee Coulter has emerged as one of Australia’s brightest stars. And it just so happens that she and her husband don’t want kids.
This article was first written in 2019 and updated in April 2023.
Feature Image: Instagram @therickilee / Canva
Top Comments
Firstly - the world is stuffed, why bring children into it?
Secondly - I had two boys, one deceased, his older brother is contributing to the world by being a nice person, working hard and trying to achieve, I’m immensely proud and love him, However the pain we are experiencing emotionally , I wish I hadn’t had children. My son is gentle and greatly affected by losing his close friend and now feels so alone. He knows in the future (when both parents are gone) he will be alone in the world and it bothers him greatly. I see this in him and adds to my guilt of putting him in this position!
This is heartbreaking, I hope both you and your son can feel less pain at some time. And I'm sure if your son wants it he will have his own family by the time his parents are gone, and will never have to be alone.
Good on her. I'm 35 and don't want kids for no other reason than I don't. People have called me selfish but what is more selfish, making the decision to not have kids because I know motherhood isn't for me or having children to conform to people's expectations and then resenting it because I've been forced into a life I never wanted?