DELTA force

She was Australia’s sweetheart, then copped the wrath of the country’s tall poppy syndrome. Now, Delta Goodrem is stepping into her own with a new album, tour and namesake foundation. Alley Pascoe meets the superstar on the set of her first marie claire cover shoot, celebrating 20 years in the industry

- Alley Pascoe

Delta Goodrem is a gazelle: graceful, long-limbed and full of bouncy energy. “You have to get down and dirty with Delta,” says fashion photographer Simon Lekias, crawling around on the concrete floor of a studio in Sydney’s Alexandria, poised to capture the shot. “You just have to let her go wild and wait for her to do her thing, like a National Geographic photographer.”

Sure enough, moments later, Delta tilts her face to catch the afternoon light as a leaf blower mimics an African savanna breeze, perfectly tousling her hair. And there it is: the shot. Fittingly, ‘Wild Thing’ plays in the background.

The marie claire crew gather around the photographer’s screen and stare admiringly at the capture. Delta’s boyfriend of two years, musician Matthew Copley, joins the chorus of praise: “My favourite [look] is Delta in a T-shirt around the house: raw, authentic, natural beauty – no false eyelashes.”

At 35, having just wrapped her ninth year as a judge on The Voice and on the cusp of releasing her sixth album, Delta is embracing her raw, authentic, barefoot beauty more than ever before. This album is her most honest and vulnerable piece of work to date. In the first single, ‘Keep Climbing’, an anthem about resilience and pushing past fear, she sings, “I see new lines across my face. I lost some strength that I can’t replace. Am I too tired for this healing? And are my scars now too revealing?”