NEED TO KNOW
- Australian Idol host and alumni Ricki-Lee Coulter has shared more details about her decision to not have children.
- She has been vocal about her decision in the past.
- She has been married to her husband, Richard Harrison, for more than 10 years.
WARNING: This article discusses the topic of addiction which might be triggering for some readers. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Alcohol and Other Drug hotline 1800 250 015. If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, help is always available. Call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit their website.
Ricki-Lee Coulter first won the country’s hearts on Australian Idol in 2004, with fans of the show left shocked at her premature elimination from the singing competition.
Despite placing seventh, she has established a flourishing career for herself, and is loved up behind the scenes with her husband and manager, Richard Harrison.
After their wedding, the questions began circulating about whether they planned to have children.
Does Ricki-Lee have any children?
Over the years, Ricki-Lee has been vocal about her decision not to have children and pushed back against those who have questioned her decision.
“You never know what’s going on behind closed doors. This wasn’t my experience, but a lot of women in the media are trying to fall pregnant behind the scenes, and being asked about it all the time just adds extra pressure,” she told Stellar.
“I think it was pretty shocking for people to hear me say it wasn’t something I was planning for my own life, but it’s amazing to see more women making the same choice.”
The Australian Idol host, who is also set to host the Ricki-Lee & Tim Show with Tim Blackwell on Nova, spoke about her love of children and explained that she’s “all-in” with her career.
“I’m so aware of what a huge responsibility it is to take a little person and make them into a great human,” she said.
“I’m watching my best friends, my sister do it. I have so much respect for parents, particularly working mothers, because I see the toll it takes.
“But I love what I do. And that’s the choice I’ve made. I may live to regret it one day – and people love to remind me of that – but that’s my cross to bear if that happens to be the case. But I have a happy, full life – and I can’t imagine it any different.”
The musician previously told the publication that it was frustrating to justify.
“For me, it’s simply: I don’t want kids. People on the street ask me, ‘When are you and Rich having kids?’ Stop!” she said previously, adding that it’s a”personal decision” that can involve a lot of factors depending on the person.
“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.”
She also spoke about her and Richard’s decision on The Morning Show, saying that kids just aren’t on their radar.
“There’s lots of people who really, really, really want children, and I think that they’re the people who should have kids,” she said.
Despite her decision not to have kids, she still has plenty of youthful influence in her life as a doting 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,” she told Stellar.
How did Ricki-Lee meet her husband?
Richard was first brought to Ricki’s attention when she noticed him on her Facebook ‘Friends’ list. As fate would have it, the Australian Idol alum ran into said ‘Friend’ at the Esplanade Hotel two months later.
“It was midnight, we’d been drinking. The classy girl I am, I was standing on a chair sculling a jug of beer and in comes that face I’d seen on Facebook,” Ricki told Stellar magazine. “It was like a bullet to my chest. He smiled at me, and it was like my knees went from under me. We clicked straight away.”
He then followed her to Sydney and quickly became her manager, despite his lack of experience.
Fast forward to 2013, and Richard proposed to Ricki after a romantic piano rendition of Coldplay’s emotional anthem The Scientist.
“My heart started racing, and I was taking deep breaths,” she previously gushed. “I started screaming and said ‘Oh-my-god’ about four-and-a-half thousand times!”
In 2015, the pair wed in France,and recently celebrated their 10-year anniversary there.
She described going back there as “awesome” and described holidays as “crucial”.
“We work together every day – it can be hard to balance work and personal, and make sure that when we’re sitting there at night, we’re not talking about work,” she told Stellar. “Sometimes balancing work and personal is very difficult.
She added that she wouldn’t be where she is today if it weren’t for Richard and their “real partnership”.
“His weaknesses are my strengths and my weaknesses are his strengths, and together we’re unstoppable,” she explained.
“We really do balance each other out. I think some men could be threatened by who I am and what I do and the spotlight that’s on me, but he’s never been like that.”
Ricki-Lee Coulter’s family life
The star’s own upbringing was tarnished by addiction, which is something that she has spoken about in the past.
“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 revealed 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.
Ricki went on to say that, as a result, she has a “grossed out attitude” towards drugs.
“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.”
Please remember to drink responsibly. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Alcohol and Other Drug hotline 1800 250 015. If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, help is always available. Call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit their website.
