Natalie Imbruglia: 'I was successful, rich and terribly unhappy'

We are upstairs at Electric House just around the corner from her Notting Hill flat, having driven here from the shoot in my very definitely un-starry Fiat. The staff all seem to know her, but then again, who wouldn’t recognise Natalie Imbruglia? The former Neighbours star may have turned 40 earlier this year but she’s hardly changed since ‘Torn’ and its accompanying video (featuring her, all boyish haircut, combat pants, hoodie and anime eyes) turned her into a star. She has no lines and no grey hair, nor any trace of plastic surgery (at least, none that this reporter could detect at close quarters on our shared banquette). Was hitting 40 a big deal? ‘Not at all,’ she says. ‘I am very happy and proud to be 40 and still have my career. I look in the mirror and I see someone older and wiser. I am not funny or sensitive about my age. You turn 40 in my industry and everyone starts talking about it in hushed tones like it’s some sort of unmentionable landmark, but I celebrated it.’ She threw ‘a big old party’ at Quo Vadis in Dean Street with pals Jimmy Carr, James Corden, Kylie Minogue, David Walliams and Holly and Sam Branson all in attendance. She also became an official British citizen.

‘So exciting! I had to take an exam,’ she says. ‘Lots of questions about the suffragette movement. But I failed the first time and had to get a tutor.’ When she eventually passed the Great British test, Imbruglia had to pledge allegiance to her new home at a ceremony. ‘I got really emotional. I choked. I couldn’t believe it. I thought, “I really, really care about this. It’s a really big deal. I have lived here [in London] for more than 20 years and this is a big part of me.” ’

When she first arrived in the capital in 1994, Imbruglia was, she admits, a headstrong, idealistic and ‘difficult to parent’ kid, having moved here against the wishes of her naturally concerned mum, dad and three sisters far away in Sydney, Australia. She’d quit her role as Beth Brennan in Neighbours that same year, but initially couldn’t get a work permit in the UK, and when her early post-soap music career stalled (before ‘Torn’ scored her a hit), she made a living doing panto or charging journalists and editors fees to do Neighbours-related interviews. It was tough. She didn’t know anyone; money was running out. Returning to Australia seemed like the only option. ‘So you can see why that ceremony made me feel really secure,’ she says. ‘Like I was home.’

Five years ago, though, Imbruglia wasn’t feeling so settled, wanted or secure. Despite some fine song-writing contributions from Coldplay’s Chris Martin and the valiant efforts of top producer Brian Eno, her 2009 album, Come to Life, stiffed spectacularly. Lacklustre sales in her homeland — just 740 copies shifted during its first week in the record shops — prompted her to cancel the album’s official release in the UK. This was disappointing stuff from an artist who had sold in excess of 8m albums, been nominated for three Grammys and won multiple Brits and MTV awards.

It didn’t help that her marriage to Daniel Johns, frontman of the Australian rock band Silverchair and the co-writer on one of Come to Life’s more lovelorn ballads, had broken down shortly after its recording. The two no longer speak: ‘It’s very sad.’

With her large and luxurious waterside home on White Lilies Island, Windsor, ‘no longer making sense’ as she found herself alone and divorced (even with her pal Elton John as a neighbour), and suffering from writer’s block, Imbruglia decided to cut loose from the UK. ‘I ran away from that album, basically,’ she says, exhaling deeply. ‘I went to Australia to be a judge on The X Factor then escaped to LA.’ But just as she was settling into West Hollywood life and getting used to being single again, she had a chance encounter with a US music-biz executive.

‘I was having breakfast at Hugo’s [a celebrated health food restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard] when this guy approached me. “Aren’t you Natalie Imbruglia? What are you doing here? You should be singing... you should be making an album.” ’

At first she tried to resist. ‘I tend to enjoy living a normal life between projects. I’m not financially driven. I am not what I do. I am not this production machine that has to be always relevant and constantly working.’

But the record executive wouldn’t give up and soon afterwards she signed with the American label Sony Masterworks (stablemates include Yo-Yo Ma and Dolly Parton). Her return to the recording studio, she says, was scary. ‘Apart from a few drunken nights out and some shower singing, I hadn’t sung a note for five years. I went into the vocal booth and said to my producer, “I’m not sure what’s going to come out!” ’ But, no worries, as they say on Neighbours. The sweet, plaintive voice was still there and the lyrical skills came back, too. ‘I’ve started writing songs... I’ve already done eight or ten. I feel like I can begin my career again.’

The result, Male, is a collection of covers of songs by male artists including The Cure, Tom Petty, Death Cab for Cutie and Daft Punk, all given a new spin and a fresh, female interpretation by Imbruglia’s vocals. It has a simple, pared-down sound — ‘very stripped back, very organic,’ she enthuses — that harks back to the basic strum and emote of ‘Torn’. There are none of the bleeps and beats, the Coldplay-ish phrasing and big chorusing that appeared on her last record. ‘I didn’t want any electronic sounds on the album... I wanted it to be vocally driven and storytelling-raw.’

Now, with dual Australian/British citizenship, she plans to buy a house in Byron Bay and split her time between London and Oz. ‘Or maybe I’ll wait until I meet a man,’ she muses. ‘I don’t want to be rattling around a big country house on my own...’

Does she want a family? ‘I am a bit behind the curve as far as family is concerned, but that doesn’t bother me right now,’ she says, sounding very much like it may be bothering her rather a lot. ‘It is something that I want; something I think about and ask myself, but right now I am not going to answer that question. I am still hopeful that I will meet someone. And yes, I may well look into other options [for babies] if I don’t, but right now, I have got time. I don’t stress about it. I live in the moment. I would really love to be a mum. And it is something that is going to happen.’

Certainly, Imbruglia has never been short of male suitors. Before she met her husband, she was linked with Robbie Williams, and she stepped out with Lenny Kravitz and Friends actor David Schwimmer. At the moment, though, she’s single: ‘I do get asked out,’ she says, ‘but not often. I think I am quite unapproachable, you know? I give off the wrong vibes. I think because I am so nice and friendly to everyone, I can’t tell when a man is flirting with me. The men that ask me out on dates don’t tend to be my type...’ Which is, she admits, the ‘bad guy’ type.

‘I seem to always go for the wrong ’uns — I’m never attracted to the kind of men I’m supposed to be attracted to.’ And when she does get involved, she will start a relationship at full tilt — ‘at 11-out-of-ten... which is too intense and all-consuming’. Was it like that when she met her husband in Australia in 1999?

‘We were in love. But his record deal was in Australia and mine was in the UK... and so, you know, it was never going to be permanent. We were both in an industry where you travel all the time. We couldn’t be based in the same country and we didn’t even make it to the point where I was planning to move back home to Australia.’ She smiles wistfully. ‘Look, I wouldn’t do that again. But when you are young and in love... the heart knows no geography. And I don’t regret it; not for one moment.’

She tells me that it’s hard for her to start a relationship as men always think of her as one of the guys. Spending time with her, I can see why that might be the case. Despite her saying she’s been ‘sober for six weeks... since a mad night out with Tamara Beckwith in Monaco’, I reckon she could drink me under the table if she fancied it. She is, in turn, feminine and tomboyish, quietly sexy but un-flirty, timorous and demure, endearingly modest.

‘A bit prudish, actually,’ she corrects me. ‘For instance, I’ve always had hang-ups about my figure. I am confident in some ways but in others I am a bit funny.’ Now that her music career is back on track, Imbruglia is having to think about how she wants to present herself to the public. At 40, the grungey 1990s hoodies have been mothballed in favour of some grown-up, DVF-style wrap dresses. Her figure is taut and toned, thanks to regular yoga, and she’s pleased that posing for the lad mags in racy underwear is no longer part of her job description. ‘That stuff always traumatised me,’ she says. ‘I once did a shoot for Loaded and it was just bikinis. I cried afterwards. When the pictures were published, men started wolf-whistling at me in the street and I didn’t like that. I think it stems from when I was doing Neighbours and I had to parade up and down in a bikini. When you are a young kid you don’t know any better. So you just go along with it. Now I can make my own choices, so I just put my foot down and say, “No more.” I don’t want to be objectified... I just want to be happy.’

Natalie Imbruglia’s new album Male is out on Sony Music Masterworks on 21 August. Portraits by David Abrahams. Styled by Jenny Kennedy