It's safe to say Bonnie Anderson is no stranger to performing, be it acting, singing or dancing.
She was 12 years old when her pipes blew away the whole country, with her audition's standing ovation leading her to victory by the end of Australia's Got Talent's first season.
But after 16 years of life behind the microphone, she found herself without a voice – and a sense of self.
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"There was actually a few gigs where I completely lost my voice," Anderson, 30, tells 9honey Celebrity from the recording studio inside her Melbourne home.
She's "hiding" from her husband Sam Morrison and their one-year-old son as we speak, with the duo "going crazy", playing together just outside the door.
There's a reason she's snuck away even though she wants to be with them. She has something she needs to talk about now that she physically can.
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"I was actually unable to sing and there was one gig, I was in Sydney actually, and I was so anxious... I was becoming a bit paranoid about my voice because I felt like I was making a lot of excuses, even with my band," the Neighbours alum recalls.
Over the course of four years, Anderson had gradually begun to lose her voice. Every time it happened, however, she and others had no idea why – was it all in her head, or was something seriously wrong with her body?
"They were like, 'You're fine, you're fine'," Anderson recalls her band telling her when she could not continue singing on stage in Sydney. "And I was like, 'No, I don't think I am'."
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Three songs into her Sydney set, it happened again. No matter how hard she tried, she found herself standing in front of an audience, every eye on her, as she attempted to get the notes out.
She couldn't.
"I completely lost my voice," Anderson, with a shudder, says. "I just said to the crowd, 'I'm so sorry'."
"It was very embarrassing. You feel like a lot of shame and you feel a bit guilty, you're doing a show to people that wanna watch you perform and it's your job and you can't do it... it was really scary."
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The show ended and Anderson flew back to Melbourne, booking an appointment with her specialist almost the second she walked through the door.
As it turns out, something was very wrong with her. She had two cysts resting on her vocal chords.
"It took me a really long time to kind of come to terms with it and actually realise, yes, 100 per cent there is something wrong," she says.
"It was getting worse and worse and it was like, 'Is this just a part of my voice now? What am I doing wrong?'"
For someone who had built a career, and identity, off being a singer, without her instrument, Anderson felt like she was in freefall.
Even though she underwent surgery in early 2024 – after much deliberation, because there was still doubt she'd be able to sing the same way – to correct the problem, that still came with a months-long healing process.
"When I go out for dinner, you know, simple things like that I always took for granted... I'm a very expressive person. I get very excited. I love to laugh loud. I love to talk loud. I like to tell stories," she says with a wistful grin.
"So it almost felt like a bit of a shift in my personality. It was such an interesting thing. It felt like, 'Oh, I can't be the person who I always was', you know? And I've really had to try and navigate all of that and work out how to tell stories in different ways."
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Anderson didn't want to completely lose that part of herself. So, even while she was still healing earlier this year, she flew to Los Angeles to work on her new album – the lead single of which, Bad Advice, was released in August.
It's her most personal release yet, with the single coming two months after her first gig back, something that left her feeling "fragile" but invincible at the same time.
"I remember every little second of it... it was just a small gig. It was five songs and I wasn't able to do certain things, but the feeling of just being back on stage was pretty extraordinary," she says with a laugh.
"It was amazing, the fact that it just felt like it was never gonna happen again."
She still has her days where she feels "cautious" and "frightened", but Anderson is hopeful that in February, when it's officially one year on from her surgery, she'll be back to her vocal self.
And then she'll truly be able to promote her upcoming album, which she wrote while she was in the thick of her recovery.
"I probably should have waited... but wow, I wrote some good songs," she says.
"It's been such a journey this year, but I'm so happy because I really did learn a lot throughout the whole process."
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