Career
At the age of fourteen, Mauboy's talents were exposed through the Telstra Road to Tamworth competition at the 2004 Tamworth Country Music Festival. As the first winner of the competition, Mauboy travelled to Sydney to perform and scored a recording deal with Sony Music Australia. She then released a country-inspired rendition of the Cyndi Lauper's hit "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun". A video for her version of the song had a release, however, the song went nowhere and Mauboy returned to Darwin until auditioning for TV talent show, Australian Idol, in 2006.
She auditioned for the fourth season of Australian Idol in Alice Springs, singing Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing". Her audition impressed all three judges, and she progressed through to the semi-finals. Following the semi-final process, Mauboy had advanced through to the top twelve. The media cited her previous Sony contract as grounds for dismissal, but since the contract had expired, Australian Idol producers refused to remove her from the show. Throughout the series, Mauboy continued to impress the judges with her performances. In the final eleven week, following her rendition of Kelly Clarkson's "Walk Away", judge Kyle Sandilands commented on Mauboy's weight, that if she wished to succeed in the music industry, she should "lose the jelly belly". Mauboy appeared stunned by the comment.
In an interview with Who magazine's Alicia Neil, two years after the comment was made, Mauboy stated "I kind of took it as a joke ... I look back on it as a positive thing – it made me a stronger person." In the final ten week, Mauboy received the first touchdown of the season from judge Mark Holden for her rendition of Christina Aguilera's hit, "Beautiful". During the final nine week, Mauboy had a sore throat that resulted in a mediocre rendition of Phil Collins' "Another Day in Paradise" and near-elimination, which landed her in the bottom three.
Following that week, she never landed in the bottom three again, and ended up progressing through to the final show with Damien Leith. The grand finale was held on 27 November at the Sydney Opera House.
After the viewer votes had been tallied it was announced that Mauboy was runner-up to Leith.
In February 2007, Jessica Mauboy released her debut live album "The Journey" which reached number four on the ARIA Albums Chart, and was certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). The album contained selected songs Mauboy performed as part of the top 12 on Australian Idol. Later that year, she briefly became a member of all-girl pop group Young Divas, before resuming her solo career early in 2008. Mauboy released her debut studio album "Been Waiting" in November 2008, which spawned her first number-one single, "Burn", as well as the album's other top 10 hits, "Running Back" and "Because". In 2010 "Been Waiting" was certified double platinum by the ARIA, for shipments of 140,000 units, and became the second highest-selling Australian album of 2009. At the 2009 ARIA Music Awards, Mauboy earned seven nominations for the album and singles, she won "Highest Selling Single" for "Running Back".
Her second studio album "Get 'Em Girls" was released in November 2010; it debuted at number six on the ARIA Albums Chart and was certified gold. Additionally, it spawned the hit singles, "Saturday Night" and "Inescapable". As of August 2011, Mauboy has released five top 10 singles, as well as two top 10 albums. Mauboy made her acting debut in the film adaptation of the 1990 Aboriginal musical, Bran Nue Dae (2010), for which she received a nomination for "Female Actress of the Year" at the 2010 Deadly Awards. In 2011 Mauboy made a guest appearance in TV series, Underbelly Razor. In 2012, she played a lead role in the film, The Sapphires.