Casey Donovan says she's proud to be white and proud to be Aboriginal.
"I'm proud to be me. That's what I'm made up of," she said, her smile as dazzling as ever.
Donovan was in Canberra on Tuesday to perform at a Sorry Day event at Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health in Narrabundah, remembering the stolen generations.
"It was beautiful to come together as a community and sing songs and tell stories and hear from people who've been affected in such a way that they've carried it through the generations," she said.
"I think it's really important to come together and have conversations and stand tall and stand proud."
Donovan was raised by her white mother and stepfather and later explored her father's Aboriginal heritage.
"As a kid, I didn't grow up with my biological father so I kind of missed a lot of things growing up, a lot of the cultural background. It wasn't until I was 18 that I set out on my own little journey to go back to country and to find those songs and those storylines, and what I can do and what is appropriate and what is not appropriate," she said.
"It was really important for me to find that within myself. That really helped me because I had a lot of impostor syndrome, you know, standing up there and saying, 'I'm a proud Gumbaynggirr Dunghutti woman'. It took a lot of years for me to actually stand there and mean it when I said it. So, it was a really empowering moment. So yeah, I'm proud to be me."
After appearing on Who Do You Think You Are? on SBS, she also discovered she was 3 per cent Swedish.
"I said something funny at the time like, 'That must be why I'm great at building IKEA'," she said, with a laugh.
Donovan will be returning to the national capital soon as part of her This is Me! tour, her first tour for "years" after immersing herself in musical theatre, including starring roles in The Mamas and The Papas, Chicago and 9 to 5.
"Each show has been just so different and the audiences have been so reactive and responsive," she said.
"I've been told by lots of people who've been to the show, 'Now Casey, I really wish you had said, 'Please bring tissues' because some people have been on this journey with me for the kast 22 years. There's a lot of pride in that room."
Donovan is almost midway through her massive 50-date tour, with Canberra's turn in July.
The 2004 Australian Idol winner will be performing at the Canberra Southern Cross Club on Friday, July 24.
It's a retrospective and a celebration of how far she's come.
Donovan was just 16 when she won the second series of Australian Idol, which was then on a huge wave of popularity, the final show broadcast from the Sydney Opera House. Donovan remains the youngest Idol winner of any of the franchises worldwide.
Now 38, Donovan has grown from being a shy teenager to an inspiring singer and role model, that progression summed up through the This is Me! tour.
"The show is about the last 22 years of my career, from before Idol, during Idol, post-Idol, musical theatre songs and new songs that I've written and old songs that I wrote," she said.
"It's just a really beautiful way of shaping up the last 22 years."
One of her co-contestants on Idol in 2004 was Canberra's own Hayley Jensen, who finished fourth in the competition and is now a country music star.
"It's really lovely to see that that era of people is still out there working hard and doing what they love," Donovan said.
Donovan also won the Australian version of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! in 2017, Channel Ten only recently confirming the show had been canned.
"I saw that just the other day. I thought, 'Oh my goodness, what are they going to do now?'," she said.
"That was such a great show and it gave a lot of people and a lot of families a place to escape. It kind of had that old-school feeling of what Idol did, I'm a Celebrity did the same for families. It was really beautiful."
She can only contemplate what life would be like now had she not tried out for Idol more than two decades ago.
"If I didn't go on Idol, I think I'd be singing in pubs on a weekend and I think I'd pretty much have a hair and makeup business," she said.
"I would hope that I would still get here, some day. I just didn't expect it would happen so quickly."
*Casey Donovan's This Is Me! tour hits the Canberra Southern Cross Club Woden on Friday, July 24. Tickets from caseydonovan.com
