Dark side of The Wiggles with group dogged by rows, walk-outs and divorce

Robert De Niro, Dolly Parton and Jessie J are fans, they're worth millions and play sell-out concerts around the world. The Wiggles – aka The Beatles for toddlers – are a preschooler’s entertainment juggernaut that has taken over the world.

They’ve got a new country album out, Wiggle Up Giddy Up, featuring two songs with the rhinestone queen herself, Dolly Parton. And tickets to their current world tour are hotter than an Oasis reunion gig.

They have previously sold out Madison Square Garden in New York for 12 days in a row and, ahead of this week’s show in the US, Hollywood legend De Niro, 81, was granted a backstage pass with his two-year-old daughter, Gia, to meet her idol - founder member, Anthony Field (Blue Wiggle).

Like most people over the age of five, De Niro didn’t have a clue about this global phenomenon until he had Gia with professional martial artist girlfriend Tiffany Chen, 45.

The Wiggles sang their classic banger Rock-A-Bye Your Bear for the veteran actor’s family, which drew a rare smile. And De Niro admitted: “I didn't know of them until I started seeing them and my daughter loves to watch them… but they're great!”

With the advent of YouTube and the arrival of their shows on Netflix, a new British audience is embracing The Wiggles.

When they came to the UK recently, Jessie J met them with her son Sky and was treated to some of the Tree of Wisdom’s viral TikTok dance moves.

They’re also part of a wave of Australian children's TV, like Bluey, that is captivating British kids, giving them Aussie accents and pushing CBeebies off the map.

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Borkowski PR’s Gregor Cubie expects his 19-month-old to join the fan club soon, and wonders if ‘Aussie-ness’ is the magic ingredient wooing international audiences.

“In the same way that Bluey is almost universally popular and accessible, The Wiggles’ sheer Aussie-ness might work in their favour when it comes to their reputation,” he says.

But, scratch the surface, according to Gregor, and you’ll find a long-running supergroup, dogged by controversy, ill health and accusations of “going woke”.

One of Australia's most successful exports, The Wiggles take it in turns with pop sensation Kylie Minogue and Hollywood actor Russell Crowe to top the Aussie rich list.

Majority owner Anthony is estimated to be worth £25m, on top of the £10 million a year the band rakes in from tours, TV shows, new releases, merchandise and sponsorships.

They have their own TV series Ready, Steady, Wiggle, have produced 62 studio albums, sold 40 million books, CDs and DVDS, and attracted more than 5 billion views on YouTube and 3 billion streams across various music services.

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They’ve been making ear-worm sing-a-long pop since 1991, when kindergarten teaching students Anthony and Jeff Fatt, who were members of the R&B pop band the Cockroaches, and got together with two fellow students - Murray Cook and Greg Page - in Sydney, to make an album of simple, catchy songs for pre-schoolers

After Anthony’s infant niece tragically died from sudden infant death syndrome, the Cockroaches disbanded.

One of the songs Anthony wrote, Get Ready to Wiggle, inspired the new band’s name because they thought “wiggling” describes how children dance.

“We met at university doing a course in early childhood – this connection with music and teaching is what became The Wiggles,” explains Anthony.

While The Wiggles has evolved since those early days, the four original members hold a special place in people’s hearts – Anthony and Jeff Fatt (Purple Wiggle), Murray Cook (Red Wiggle) and Greg Page (Yellow Wiggle). And their hits like Hot Potato and Fruit Salad, were toddler dance floor fillers for the next two decades.

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While members have changed, the primary colours of red, yellow, blue and purple that they wear is no doubt the secret of the Wiggles’ success with the ankle biters.

In Hot Potato: The Story of the Wiggles 2023 documentary, Anthony says: “It doesn’t matter who wears the skivvies, as long as we reflect our audience and communicate with children.”

Like any band, they had to break America to go truly global – and when the Disney Channel played them four times a day to their 85 million subscribers, their success was meteoric. All of a sudden, they were playing 10,000 seater arenas.

PR, Gregor puts their success down to a “combination of their prolific output with its ceaseless ability to hypnotise toddlers”.

He adds: “Also, a less extreme version of the Royal Family’s ‘never complain, never explain’ approach. Instead of saying nothing, they say the bare minimum and carry on as if nothing happened.

“You rarely see naval-gazing and the consistency and popularity of their work keeps generations of kids coming back for more.”

While there aren’t many skeletons to rattle in The Wiggle cupboards, behind their happy faces and signature finger point, members have been dogged by setbacks.

Controversies include the Hot Potato incident two years ago, when a council in Western Australia played their famous song on loop to deter anti-social behaviour at a homeless shelter.

The Wiggles complained, saying their music should only be used to “spread joy and happiness” but the damage was done.

But the fact De Niro was happy to be pictured with The Wiggles is a massive endorsement.

“Robert De Niro seems increasingly like the kind of guy who considers how his every public appearance and utterance might affect his legacy, so it’s a pretty major stamp of approval that he’s happy to be publicly associated with the Wiggles. Fundamentally they are free of reputation risk,” says Gregor.

“The irony is that the Wiggles have had a few controversies which are fairly stereotypical of long-running bands – walkouts, inter-band marriages and divorces; allegations that a song is racially insensitive, accusations of going ‘woke.’ They’ve been ruthlessly parodied on 30 Rock and, of course, the Hot Potato incident was unpleasant.”

For members of The Wiggles, the squeaky clean expectations can be tricky.

“During my time in The Wiggles, I was out at a gig one night and I was having a drink, and the next day a newspaper reported: ‘The Wiggles member caught having a beer’, and that was a shock. I am an adult!” says Murray.

And doing 400 to 500 shows a year - cramming up to three gigs into a single day - took its toll on the original members, with Jeff, Murray and Greg retiring for health reasons in 2012.

A mystery illness forced Greg to leave in 2006. He was replaced by Sam Morans, but came back in 2012. Then he suffered a heart attack on stage during a 2020 reunion show. That same year, Murray had open heart surgery.

Revealing his own struggles, Anthony released a memoir Out Of The Blue last year, detailing the years of mental and physical health problems he’s suffered, including depression, undiagnosed ADHD and chronic pain.

Yet Field created a second generation of Wiggles with Simon Pryce (Red Wiggle), Lachlan Gillespie (Purple Wiggle) and the first female, Emma Watkins (Yellow Wiggle).

“We might be responsible for their first experience of music,” says Emma, speaking about their responsibility to their tiny fans

Sadly, trouble soon upended their paradise, as shortly after Yellow Wiggle Emma married Purple Wiggle Lachie, they divorced and she left the group not long after.

Another shake-up in 2021 saw 15-year-old Tsehay Hawkins becoming Yellow Wiggle.

Now 62, Anthony is the only remaining original Wiggle, in a group of eight performers - Tsehay, Lachlan, and Simon, as well as Caterina Mete, Lucia Field, Simon Pryce, Evie Ferris, John Pearce - who are as gender-diverse and racially-diverse as their millions of fans.

Costumed characters, played by the more junior Wiggles, include Dorothy the Dinosaur, Henry the Octopus, Wags the Dog, and Captain Feathersword.

While some of the newer members say their estimated £72,000 earnings are a fraction of the big bucks of the original members, they have given the group a bigger presence on social media, where the Tree of Wisdom (played by Anthony’s nephew, Dominic Field) regularly goes viral on TikTok, with his exuberant dance moves.

And, in recent years, they’ve been noticing something new – a generational crossover, as kids grow up, but remain fans.

Dorothy the Dinosaur is also now a DJ, who remixes the original Wiggles classics for the older audience. And they’ve been getting down with the cool kids - covering songs by Fatboy Slim, White Stripes and Tame Impala’s Elephant.

“We’re bringing back happy memories,” says Anthony. “And it’s a real privilege to do that.”

Altogether now, kids, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle!

Classic kids TV groups down the years:

The Monkees, 1960s – Four cute surfer boys Davy Jones, Mickey Donlenz, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith running around in zany plots to brilliant pop tracks, in a sitcom that captured the spirit of the era.

The Banana Splits, 1970s – Four costumed animal characters who’d perform songs and comedy skits in a psychedelic world, was just as weird and fun as it sounds. The makers had clearly been on the wacky baccy.

Rainbow, 1980s – Presenter Geoffrey and his camp puppets Zippy, George and Bungle and hippy singers Rod, Jane and Freddy took us “Up above the streets and houses, Rainbow climbing high” every week. I still miss them.

Teletubbies, 1990s – Some called it the most disturbing children’s show on TV – but even now millions of babies are glued to repeats of these four tubby aliens, Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa-laa, and Po, with coat hangers on their heads living on a mini golf course.

Zingzillas, 2000s – Puppet monkey band Zak, Tang, Panzee and Drum lived on a tropical island and made real music together and introduced tots to rock, soul, jazz and samba styles – along with some dodgy titles like Do You Didgeridoo?

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