Natalie Imbruglia has opened up about her struggles on the set of her ‘Torn’ video, admitting that she refused to wear a dress in the clip her ’90s hit because she was “so body dysmorphic and insecure”.
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The music video for the Australian singer’s 1997 single sees her donning army pants. Now, in an interview with The Independent, the 47-year-old revealed she insisted on that outfit because she didn’t want to draw attention to her body shape.
“My intention in wearing that was so that you couldn’t see my silhouette, because I didn’t want anyone to see,” Imbruglia said. “But it ended up that there was a power in that because it was like [seen as] androgyny cool.
“But it really came from a place of ‘thank god I don’t have to wear a dress!'”
The interview also saw Imbruglia discuss the insecurities she felt around her music career. “I had grown up as a stage-school kid, she said. “I was a trained performer. But in some ways, that felt a little bit cheesy compared to what I was trying to do [as an artist]. So I couldn’t kind of marry those things in my head.”
Elsewhere, the artist – who got her start playing Beth Brennan on long-running Aussie soap opera Neighbours – elaborated on the debts she incurred in pursuit of her ambitions. “I was in debt and I’d been famous for being on this TV show. I couldn’t get a work permit and I couldn’t get jobs. When I signed my record deal, my UK visa was about to run out and I owed two grand to my landlord.”
Earlier this year, Imbruglia announced her ‘Left Of The Middle’ 25th anniversary tour, celebrating her 1997 debut album.
Billed as “a celebration of the album that made her a global star”, the run kicked off last night (October 10) at Bristol’s SWX. It will continue in London, Bexhill-on-Sea, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow across this month.
On the tour, she’ll perform tracks from the multi-Platinum album as well as more recent songs from her last album ‘Firebird’.
Back in July, pop singer Olivia Rodrigo covered ‘Torn’ at a spontaneous club gig in Manchester, prompting a surprise duet between Imbruglia and Rodrigo at the latter’s London show the next week.
The next month saw Imbruglia join Coldplay‘s Chris Martin on stage at Wembley Stadium. Together, they delivered a performance of ‘Summer Nights’ from Grease, paying tribute to the late Olivia Newton-John.