Romance? It's all quiet on the Westenra front
31 July 2005
By MAGGIE WICKS

Two years ago she was the little girl with the long hair and an album that could only be called Pure.

But Christchurch's most famous schoolgirl turned 18 three months ago, shifted into her own London pad and is looking for a maid. That nice Hayley Westenra has been linked with UK pop star Daniel Bedingfield, has a contact book more star-studded than Heidi Fleiss' and, at the height of the US-led occupation of Iraq, sang for George Bush.

The title of the album she releases next month is a much less pure Odyssey. Goodbye good girl? Well, no. That glass of bubbly the fastest-selling classical artist in history was seen holding at her 18th party in London was a prop for the photographers outside.

"I do like champagne, but alcohol is really drying for the throat," she said on a trip back home to promote her new album.

She's hung out at a bar with that other classical pop sensation, Charlotte Church, who spent the entire time texting her boyfriend as he waited outside in the car. And at 18, Westenra is still waiting for her first boyfriend. She laughs off the Bedingfield rumour, saying they're just good friends.

"I'd be over the moon if I met someone. Seriously, I'd be telling everyone." Has anyone come close? "Ummm, no."

But she's not moping. Maintaining a relationship would be too much work. This year - a relatively quiet one for Westenra - has included three trips to Japan and a German tour. And, she says, she's fussy about blokes. "They have to tick all the boxes." Such as? "They'd have to be hot. A bit of a sense of humour is important. And kind-hearted, and understanding of the situation I'm in. I'd hardly have time for them."

Pure she may be, daft she is not. Westenra has enough self-awareness to know it's unusual to be so damn nice. "I'm just that kind of person," she says.

And you don't have to be naughty to be interesting. Alongside her incredible sales figures, there was what Westenra refers to as "the BBQ", the concert for the trifecta of Bush/Blair/the Queen. It was Andrew Lloyd Webber who asked her to perform at a private concert at the US ambassador's residence in London.

"I don't think people would have held it against me for performing for (Bush), even though what he was doing at the time wasn't really, you know, most people didn't really agree with it."

Her view on the situation at the time? "I'm not keen on wars, full stop."

But there were mitigating factors. "I thought, 'well, the Queen's there'."

Photo : HOT PROPERTY: Hayley Westenra has certainly grown up - but despite her phenomenal success, she's still the nice girl from Down Under.
DAVID WHITE/Sunday Star-Times