![]() ![]() Harry Styles ditches his kooky ensembles for sporty shorts as he steps out of the gym during a day off from his Love On Tour showsĪdele's 30 is praised by critics for 'treading braver territory' while others feel the topic of divorce is 'all-consuming' 'When you take a really big risk, when you follow what it is you know is right for yourself, you can't go wrong,' she said. They are set to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary in just a couple of weeks and she admits that after lots of hard work, everything has come together for her after moving to the Big Apple. Karen met her husband in New York, through a friend in the music industry. It's not often Karen and her family use GPS navigation themselves - as they live in Manhattan in New York, where cars aren't a necessity - but she says when they go on holiday she does have to listen to instructions from herself.Īnd while on holiday in Hawaii with her husband and her six-year-old son Hayden, Hayden heard her voice on the directions and repeated all the lines, adding 'daddy' on the end. It's always stories about how we got lost and the time we recalculated.' 'But I have to say just about every time I meet someone there is that level of familiarity, like I'm a member of their family or someone close to them. World famous: Karen's voice can be heard on Apple iPhones when listening to Siri and on GPS systems around the world 'I was the last person in the world to get an iPhone,' she laughed. 'I've been asked to speak at events about women in technology - but I am literally just a woman in technology not someone that knows loads about it. Karen admitted she didn't even know what a GPS was in 2004, let alone how her voice had been used for it. 'I was back in Australia for Christmas and a friend called me and left me a voicemail message saying "my husband and I are driving back to Maine and we turned the Australian voice on our GPS on - and it was you, you directed us back to New York".' It wasn't until a couple of years later, in 2004, that she found out what the recordings were being used for, during a surprising phone call from a friend. 'I'd record from 9-1pm, have lunch and go back to the hotel and write songs,' she said. She recorded 50 hours of instructions, with her time in the studio being broken up into four hours a day over three weeks so that her voice didn't get tired. When Karen pitched up for the audition all she knew was it was for a 'text-speech system'. She decided to finally up sticks to the Big Apple when she noticed a lot of people close to her 'were making big plans in their life'.īig Apple: Karen left her hometown of Mackay (left) behind and boarded a plane to New York(right) with just one suitcase and 'big dreams' in 2000 Next she moved to Sydney, where she worked in the piano bars of five star hotels and made her musical theatre debut in the original Australian cast of Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story.Īfter ten years working in Sydney, she said: 'You couldn't turn the TV on in the 1990s without hearing my voice on the TV or radio in Australia.'īut Karen was still harbouring her big dream - to move to America. all those years of piano lessons,' she added.Īfter spending her childhood in Mackay, Karen moved to Brisbane to study music at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University. but I was very clear all along that my life was going to be about music,' she said, speaking from the place she now calls home - Manhattan, New York. 'Some of them said "she'll grow out of it". Karen, who played the lead in her school shows growing up in Mackay, told her parents and 'everyone who would listen' of her ambitious plans. She watched her blonde-haired Australian icon Olivia Newton-John on TV in America, saw how successful she was, and thought: 'I want to be a singer and move to America.' ![]() Big dreamer: From the age of seven, growing up in Mackay, a city on the eastern coast of Queensland, Karen had dreams of making it in America ![]()
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