Jessica Mauboy
Birth Name: Jessica Hilda Mauboy
Place of Birth: Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
Date of Birth: 4 August, 1989
Ethnicity:
*father – Indonesian
*mother – Maltese, Kuku Yalanji Aboriginal Australian
Jessica Mauboy is an Australian R&B and pop singer, songwriter, and actress. She was a runner-up on Australian Idol in 2006, and has worked with Ludacris and Flo Rida. She represented Australia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018. She has starred in the films The Sapphires and Bran Nue Dae and on the series The Secret Daughter. She is also known as Jess Mauboy.
Her father, Ferdy, is Indonesian, from West Timor. Her mother, Therese, is of Maltese and Indigenous Australian descent, from the Kuku Yalanji people in the rainforest regions of Far North Queensland. Jessica is married to soccer player and council worker Themeli “Magoo” Magripilis. Themeli is of Greek descent.
Jessica has stated:
My middle name is Hilda, after my grandmother. Nana was a soaring power. She was an Indigenous woman who fell in love with a white European man [of Maltese descent]; it was a secret love because there was still segregation at the time. Being an Indigenous woman with a white fella, Nana struggled. But she stuck to her path. I think that’s where I get my fire from.
Source: https://podcasts.apple.com
About her maternal grandmother:
“My middle name is Hilda, after my grandmother. Nana was a soaring power. She was an Indigenous woman who fell in love with a white European man; it was a secret love because there was still segregation at the time. Being an Indigenous woman with a white fella, Nana struggled. But she stuck to her path. I think that’s where I get my fire from.”
https://www.yarn.com.au/blogs/yarn-in-the-community/jessica-mauboy-empowering-women-and-communities
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/jess-mauboy/id1459220847?i=1000446365007 (at 28:32)
“Nana married a white man. His background was Maltese. He was the only white fellow in the family to be honest.”
Her mother is definitely not a fully Indigenous Australian woman. There is a Maltese community in Aus so that makes sense.
Was this man Mauboy’s grandfather? She doesn’t outright refer to him as such.
He was. She goes on to say in that interview right after that they got married and had four girls, and she also refers to the Maltese man as her mother’s father.
She will represent Australia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018.
i love her! she’s so beautiful and talented
Like that song (been waiting)