'IT FEELS LIKE FIVE MINUTES SINCE I WON!

The Australian Idol star is on the comeback trail after learning to love herself all these years later

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Kate DeAraugo is a very different woman to the fresh-faced teenager who almost collapsed in shock when she was named the Australian Idol in front of thousands of screaming fans at Sydney Opera House in 2005.

“I still watch the footage back and the shocked expression on my face was accurate. I just didn’t believe it. I never believed I was even good enough to be standing there at the end and then to win, it came as a huge shock to me,” says Kate, who was a swimming coach from Bendigo when two million people tuned in to watch her be crowned the third Idol winner.

"It was an unbelievable moment," she recalls.

According to Kate, 39, the following press conference and joyful afterparty left her reeling in a mist of excitement - before she started a completely new life, with the first of 70 press interviews at 4.30am.

“There wasn’t any time to sit back and reflect on what had happened,” she tells Woman’s Day in an exclusive interview to announce the comeback tour that marks her 20-year Idol anniversary.

HIGHS & LOWS OF FAME

Both Kate's debut single Maybe Tonight and the debut album that followed, A Place I’ve Never Been, went platinum.

She seemed to be on the path to superstardom, following in the footsteps of the first series winner Guy Sebastian and his runner-up Shannon Noll. But just as her career started to skyrocket, she turned to cocaine and alcohol to dull the pain of a lifetime of insecurity about her body image, which was only made worse with fame and the spotlight it constantly put her in.