Comedian Celeste Barber grew up in a close-knit family on the NSW coast dancing and making people laugh.
COMEDIAN CELESTE BARBER’S UPBRINGING ON NSW’S FAR NORTH COAST PAVED THE WAY FOR HER UNIQUE BRAND OF COMEDY — AND MILLIONS OF FOLLOWERS WHO EMBRACE HER REFRESHING TAKE ON SOCIAL MEDIA.
WHAT DO GWYNETH PALTROW, Reese Witherspoon and Tom Ford all have in common? Like 5.5 million other Instagram followers, they are fans of Celeste Barber. Celeste, who has become renowned for her comedic #celestechallengeaccepted posts, loves to parody celebrities and it’s clear that many of them love her right back. A scroll through her Instagram page uncovers a shot of Kim Kardashian elegantly rubbing her eyes in a Mickey Mouse T-shirt matched with one of Celeste wearing rumpled flannelette pyjamas. Another is Celeste on a bed messily eating chips — her response to supermodel Miranda Kerr’s post about eating takeaway in bed. This tongue-in-cheek brand of humour has certainly struck a chord around the world, particularly in the US where her last tour sold out in just 24 hours. More often than not, the posts go viral — and last September, designer Tom Ford flew Celeste to New York for fashion week after a friend showed him her post spoofing his ad campaign. Rather than take it as an affront, the designer decided to join in on the fun and the subsequent videos of Celeste, a mother-of-two and stepmum-of-two, in control underwear trying to squeeze into his sample-size garments were the talk of the fashion world. In one, she tells Ford, “I used to dance, can you tell?”. “I can’t,” he dryly replies. Of course, it’s a style of comedy that originates from the very Australian ‘don’t take yourself too seriously’ school of jokes. But where did it all begin? on The the 36-year-old Tweed River grew that up previously in Terranora, counted a small AFL NSW player town Sam Gilbert and children’s author Hesba Fay Brinsmead as its most famous residents. “I love it up there,” Celeste explains, “so much so that we have recently moved back.” She cites “the space and the beaches” as prime attractions of the Far North Coast. “I used to go for a walk every afternoon after school around Kirra, Snapper and Rainbow Bay beaches — some of my favourite memories growing up are there.” The second of Neville ‘Nifty’ and Kath Barber’s two daughters — today she is very close — Celeste to her went older to sister school Olivia at St Barber-hayes Joseph’s College in Banora Point from Year 7 to 12. “I wasn’t really great at school, it just wasn’t my thing. Every now and then I’d pretend I had slipped into a deep coma so when my dad came in at exactly 6.55am every single morning to get me up for school, I would squeeze my eyes shut and go as stiff as a board — behaviour commonly associated with coma patients — so I wouldn’t have to go to school,” she says in her memoir Challenge Accepted. Finally, at 16, Celeste was diagnosed with ADD. The news wasn’t a surprise, but her account of the specialist telling her parents is an indication of the role family has played in her career. “I’ll never forget that conversation. As a loud, full-on, average-looking girl, the fact that from a young age my mother was passionate about me being me was the world,” she writes. Neville and Kath, determined not to change their beloved daughter with medication, made the first step in teaching her that it is our differences that define us. A sentiment that this unlikely queen of Instagram has taken to heart. > Follow @celestebarber on Instagram.
“I used to go for a walk every afternoon after school around Kirra, Snapper and Rainbow Bay beaches.”
I COME FROM A SMALL FAMILY; it’s just the four of us — Mum Kath, Dad Nev, my older sister Olivia and me. My parents are such a great team. Mum has a short fuse and Dad loves nothing more than ticking her off, in a loving way of course. Mum is really creative: she has run three successful interior design businesses, and at the ripe old age of 62 decided to start her own soy candle brand, Flame Candles, supplying wholesale candles to shops across the country. My dad’s the handiest and cleverest man in the world. He’s funny and patient, and can fix anything. Between them they’ve built two houses —Mum designed them and Dad built them — had two daughters, and put a lot of effort into naming their pets as though they were a barren couple and their pets were all they had. When I was born, we had a silky terrier Phoebe Josephine then we got a schnauzer Lucinda May, followed by another silky terrier Bronte Isabella — and Mum is currently treating her second schnauzer Clover Lee like a misunderstood genius child. Liv and I were lucky kids; we never went without. We had our own rooms, we could eat cheese whenever we wanted and, when we were annoying — and our parents sent us outside because we were being too loud — we had enough outdoor area to whip sticks at each other without doing any real damage. My dad is solid like a rock, always there for anyone and always happy to tell you a dumb joke that you’ll roll your eyes at then excuse yourself to the toilet to record in your phone so you can recite it to your friends later at the pub. He was an only child, and lived in the same house from the day he was born to the day when he and Mum moved in together. Dad lived on a dairy farm near Tweed Heads and when the local milk carrier would come by at 7am to pick up the milk, he would also pick up Dad and take him to school. The school was so small that on a number of occasions the principal would call Nanna Rita to make sure Dad was going to school that day, as no one had turned up and they needed him there to keep the school open. He was four. I danced when I was a kid, and when I say ‘danced’ I mean danced (tilts head with an over-the-top click of the fingers). I danced at eisteddfods, at shopping centres, at school fairs, the Ekka (the Royal Queensland Show), conferences, football grand finals, in my nanna’s shower, in my shower, and given the chance I’d dance in your shower, too. I was a self-proclaimed unique triple threat: I could dance, dance and dance. And I loved it. I’ve also always loved making people laugh — at me, with me, whatever. As long as people are laughing because of me, I’m happy. At school, I was the perfect scapegoat for my mates and also a good victim for teachers to unleash on. I struggled academically. I couldn’t concentrate, I was easily bored and wanted to do anything other than stay still. Turns out I had ADD, and the small private Catholic school on the Far North Coast of NSW didn’t have that on their syllabus. When we were kids, if Mum said we were leaving the house at 6pm, at 5.45pm Dad would have the car reversed out of the driveway, air conditioning running, cooler bag of lemon, lime and bitters and a nice bottle of white wine for Mum. He’d wait patiently as she figured out what perfume to wear from the collection he had bought her, and for Olivia and me, who were fighting over whose acid-wash drop-waisted skirt was whose. When we paraded down the stairs at 6.05pm Dad would always greet us with a compliment. ‘You look lovely, dear,’ he would say to Mum. ‘You look lovely, girls,’ he would say, continuing the compliment. Then we were in the perfecttemperature car and off! This is an edited extract from Challenge Accepted! by Celeste Barber (Harper Collins Publishers, $32.99).