Australian music icon Tina Arena has confessed that she has been out of work for over 18 months and doing it tough.
In an interview with Stellar, the 52-year-old singer said she’s struggling to pay her mortgage amidst the coronavirus pandemic after buying a $5.7 million mansion in Melbourne’s affluent suburb of Toorak in 2017.
WATCH: Tina Arena wows in sparkly dress on Australian tour
Arena told the magazine that being out of work for some time is being compounded by COVID-19.
Yet despite her money woes, Arena shared that she isn’t about to panic as there are “millions of us who can’t afford to make those repayments right now.”
Arena’s been making the most of her time in self-isolation, playing along with memes dubbing her ‘QuaranTina Arena‘ and hopping on Instagram Live to chat with friends and fans.
As a board member of the Australia Council, the Federal Government’s principal arts funding body, Arena says the government will need to do something to help the arts industry recover when the pandemic has finally passed.
“The government needs to put things in place in order to protect us. We can’t all lose our homes at the same time, that’s not possible,” she said.
Despite this week’s announcement of a $27 million relief package for the arts industry, Arena believes that it’s not enough to keep the industry afloat and pointed out that freelancers — who make up a large swathe of the sector — don’t qualify for the Job Keeper payments.
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