Sia Kate Isobelle Furler (born: December 18, 1975), known professionally simply as Sia, is an Australian musician, singer, and songwriter, who performs the genres of pop, electropop, and indie pop.
History[]
Since she began her career in 1990, she's released a total of nine studio albums, including OnlySee, (1997), Healing Is Difficult, (2001), Colour the Small One, (2004), Some People Have Real Problems, (2008), We Are Born, (2010), 1000 Forms of Fear, (2014), This is Acting, (2016), Everyday Christmas, (2017), and Music – Songs from and Inspired by the Motion Picture, (2021), one compilation album, which was Best Of..., (2012), seven live albums, which included Lady Croissant, (2007), iTunes Live from Sidney, (2009), iTunes Live – ARIA Concert Series, (2010), The We Meaning You Tour (Copenhagen 12 May 2010), (2011), The We Meaning You Tour, Live at the Roundhouse 27 May 2010, (2011), Spotify Sessions, (2016), and triple j Live at the Wireless – Big Day Out 2011, (2020), nine remix albums, which includes The Girl You Lost to Cocaine (Remixes), (2008), Remix 1 - EP, (2008), Remix 2 - EP, (2008), Buttons (Remixes), (2008), Elastic Heart (The Remixes), (2014), Chandelier Remixes – EP, (2014), Big Girls Cry (Remixes) – EP, (2015), Alive (Remixes) - EP, (2015), and Cheap Thrills (Remixes), (2016), and one video album, which is TV Is My Parent, (2009).
In 2021, Sia made her film debut by writing and directing a feature film, titled Music, which was released in early 2021 alongside an album, Music – Songs from and Inspired by the Motion Picture, about an autistic girl named Music bonding with her estranged sister who is a former drug addict, Zu, after the death of their grandmother. Among the accolades received by Sia are nearly a dozen ARIA Awards, 9 Grammy Award nominations and an MTV Video Music Award. However, her movie was criticized for hiring Maddie Ziegler instead of an autistic person to play Music.
Discography[]
- OnlySee (1997)
- Healing Is Difficult (2001)
- Colour the Small One (2004)
- Some People Have Real Problems (2008)
- We Are Born (2010)
- 1000 Forms of Fear (2014)
- This Is Acting (2016)
- Everyday Is Christmas (2017)
- Music (2021)
- Reasonable Woman (2024)
Tours[]
- We Meaning You Tour (2010–2011)
- We Are Born Tour (2011)
- Nostalgic for the Present Tour (2016–2017)
Filmography[]
- The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)
- Burlesque (2010)
- The Great Gatsby (2013)
- The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
- Annie (2014)
- Transparent (2015)
- Racing Extinction (2015)
- Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)
- Pitch Perfect 2 (2015)
- San Andreas (2015)
- Beat Bugs (2016)
- The Eagle Huntress (2016)
- Zootopia (2016)
- Finding Dory (2016)
- The Neon Demon (2016)
- Star Trek Beyond (2016)
- Lion (2016)
- Fifty Shades Darker (2017)
- Wonder Woman (2017)
- My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)
- Fifty Shades Freed (2018)
- A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
- Charming (2018)
- Dumplin' (2018)
- Vox Lux (2018)
- Seven Worlds, One Planet (2019)
- Dolittle (2020)
- Music (2021)
- Kangaroo Valley (2022)
Controversies[]
Elastic Heart music video[]
The mudic video for her song "Elastic Heart" finds Shia LaBeouf and Dance Moms alum Maddie Ziegler dancing half-dressed in a bird cage. Detractors deemed the piece inappropriate, criticizing the clip for its sexual undertones – namely the physical contact between LaBeouf, 28, and 12-year-old Ziegler – that some believe edged on pedophilia.
The Grammy nominee took to social media Wednesday to say sorry over the course of several Tweets:
“I anticipated some ‘[pedophilia]’!!!’ Cries for this video. All I can say is Maddie and Shia are two of the only actors I felt could play These two [warring] ‘Sia’ self states,” she explained.
Sia also says “I apologize to those who feel triggered by #ElasticHeart My intention was to create some emotional content, not to upset anybody.”
While the clip – co-directed by Daniel Askill – picked up its fair share of flak, came to its defense, citing that it’s art, not pedophilia.
Popular music site Consequence of Sound’s Michelle Geslani defended the clip, writing: “Interpretive dance is just that – interpretive. Also, as we’ve come to learn more about Sia and the kind of artist she is, I think it’s safe to say that the art which she puts forth always has a deeper meaning. Skin doesn’t always = Sex. Touching doesn’t always = Lust. Dancing doesn’t always indicate something carnal.
As for the stars of the music video, LaBeouf has yet to comment on the controversy (he just Tweeted the video the day of its release). Ziegler talked to Entertainment Weekly about working with the older Fury star.
“I felt like I knew him when I met him. Before we started filming ‘Elastic Heart,’ he took my mom and I to eat, just to start to know each other and stuff. You have to get used to your dance partner. Even though we’re battling and fighting against each other, we still have to know each other, you know? You can’t just walk in and be like, ‘Hey, let’s start dancing with each other!'” Ziegler told EW.
"Music" movie[]
Sia released a movie film named "Music" in 2021. However, after it got released, she got backlash from the Autism community, with said community criticizing the film for its casting of an able-bodied, neurotypical person in the lead role and for what they see as its stereotypical portrayal of people with autism.
In the film, which was nominated for a Golden Globe for best musical of comedy, Sia's long-time collaborator Maddie Ziegler plays Music, a non-verbal young woman on the autistic spectrum, who comes under the guardianship of her recovering addict half-sister Zu (played by Kate Hudson.)
The controversy over the film began when the trailer and first music video for the film were released in November, with many taking to Twitter to ask why Sia had not hired someone on the autistic spectrum to play the character.
This comes after a long debate over whether able-bodied and/or neurotypical people should play disabled or neurodivergent characters. Actors have long garnered awards for such portrayals, with actors like Eddie Redmayne (for The Theory of Everything), Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man) and Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot) winning Oscars for such roles. Dozens of actors have been nominated for playing disabled or neurodivergent people over the years, and yet only two disabled people have won acting Oscars—Harold Russell, the star of 1946's The Best Years of Our Lives who had both of his hands amputated, and deaf actor Marlee Maitlin for 1986's Children of a Lesser God.
However, there have been increasing calls for disabled or neuro-divergent actors, who have long been under-represented in Hollywood, to play these roles.
Addressing the criticisms of the casting of her long-term collaborator Ziegler on Twitter, Sia is generally agreed to have made things worse for herself. In one of her first tweets when the controversy broke, she revealed: "I actually tried working with a beautiful young girl non-verbal on the spectrum and she found it unpleasant and stressful. So that's why I cast Maddie."
Though this may have pacified some of her critics, she followed this up by insulting one of her critics. One user, for example, tweeted: "Several autistic actors, myself included, responded to these tweets. We all said we could have acted in it on short notice. These excuses are just that—excuses. The fact of the matter is zero effort was made to include anyone who is actually autistic." To which Sia replied: "Maybe you're just a bad actor."
She wrote that same day: "I cast thirteen neuroatypical people, three trans folk, and not as f****** prostitutes or drug addicts but as doctors, nurses and singers. F****** sad nobody's even seen the dang movie. My heart has always been in the right place."
Now, though, people have seen the movie, and the criticism has not gone away. In fact, the controversy may have been worsened by the fact that people have been able to see more of Ziegler's performance, which many have called out for relying on stereotypical tropes about autistic people.
In an interview with Australian talk show The Project in January, Sia revealed that Ziegler has been apprehensive about the role, saying: "She [Ziegler] just said, 'I don't want anyone to think I'm making fun of them...And I bald-facedly said, 'I won't let that happen.'"
Per some film critics, however, she did indeed let that happen. Guardian film critic Simran Hans, for example, summed up a lot of the negative reviews about Music when she wrote in a one-star review: "Ziegler... is not herself on the autistic spectrum. It's a problem, especially given the cartoonishness of her portrayal, which sees her gurning, grimacing and mumbling through her scenes...The lyrics, jaunty platitudes about Music's "magic mind" and failing body, are offensive too."
Hans is far from the only critic to have not liked the film. The movie currently has a 17 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critical consensus for the movie calling it out for being, "offensive in its depiction of autism—and painfully misguided in essentially every respect."
On The Project, Sia defended Ziegler's casting by saying: "I realized it wasn't ableism—I mean, it is ableism, I guess, as well—but it's actually nepotism, because I can't do a project without her. I don't want to."
Newsweek has reached out to the Child Mind Institute to verify this claim and will update this article if we get a response.
After the film was released, many viewers also criticized the film for scenes that showed Music getting restrained. Whether or not to restrain an autistic child has been a huge topic of debate among those with autism and their parents and carers over recent years, with many saying that the practice is traumatizing and can actually make a violent outburst worse.
In one of her last tweets before disabling her account, after Music received two Golden Globe nominations, Sia wrote: "I'm sorry. MUSIC in no way condones or recommends the use of restraint on autistic people. There are autistic occupational therapists that specialize in sensory processing who can be consulted to explain safe ways to provide proprioceptive, deep-pressure feedback to help w meltdown safety. I plan to remove the restraint scenes from all future printings. I listened to the wrong people and that is my responsibility, my research was clearly not thorough enough, not wide enough."
In the same interview, she claimed, "we sent [Ziegler's performance] off to the Child Mind Institute, and she received a 100% as performance accuracy."
Eventually on May 30th, 2023, Sia would then share that she is on the autism spectrum herself years after the backlash, as well as claiming that she was suicidal and went to rehab.[1][2][3] She slso mentions that Kathy Griffin saved her life.[4]
Grooming Allegations[]
Although Maddie Ziegler gained her notoriety from starring on Lifetime's "Dance Moms," her fame would only heighten after collaborating with musician Sia.
The singer reached out to Ziegler after watching her stellar performances on the hit reality show and tapped Ziegler to star in her "Chandelier" music video in 2014.
Ziegler was 12 years old at the time of meeting now-46-year-old Sia and starring in her music video, though their relationship would steadily grow.
Sia and Ziegler would go on to collaborate on a plethora of other projects, including Sia's "Plastic Hearts" music video, which featured controversial actor Shia LaBeouf.
Their relationship has been branded "inappropriate" by many fans, who compare Sia's relationship with Ziegler to that of late pop icon Michael Jackson, who was accused of sexually abusing underage boys.
While society doesn't always recognize adult women as being predatory or grooming children the same way as adult men, it can still be a possibility.
On more than one occasion has Sia publicly confessed the maternal love she feels toward Ziegler, and how the pair see each other as family. Sia was even named Ziegler's godmother, purchased the "Dance Moms" star's first car, and let Ziegler stay over at her home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In an interview on Sirius XM's "Fierce: Women In Music," the Australian singer claimed that she had an instant connection when meeting Ziegler, and experienced the love of a mother with her "firstborn" child.
"[Maddie] feels like she’s my first-born, even though she was 11. I would take a bullet for her, all the things parents say they would do for their children," the "Plastic Hearts" singer said.
Sia also shared that she didn't think she could love another person that much until she met Ziegler, adding that she's grateful Ziegler's mom "shares" her.
After Ziegler starred in Sia's "Chandelier" music video, the pair's relationship quickly grew more intense. The pair would reportedly have weekly sleepovers at Sia's home while Ziegler was still a young child, and according to Ziegler's mom, Melissa Gisoni, Sia would snuggle with Ziegler in bed.
“They’re like sisters, I love how they snuggle together,” Gisoni said of her eldest daughter and Sia during an interview with Stuff. Considering Ziegler was 12 and Sia was 39 at the time, fans aren't too impressed with that tidbit of information.
In an interview with the Australian talk show "The Project" in January 2021, Sia admitted that she doesn't want to do projects without Ziegler.
During the press for her controversial film "Music," which stars Ziegler playing a character on the autism spectrum, despite Ziegler not being autistic herself, Sia claimed she didn't think about casting anyone else as the lead role.
"I realized it wasn't ableism — I mean, it is ableism, I guess, as well — but it's actually nepotism, because I can't do a project without her, I don't want to. I wouldn't make art if it didn't include her," said Sia.
Sia even spoke about keeping Ziegler out of films, and how much of a strong impact she has on the young star's career.
“Even recently, she was offered a part in a film and I felt that the film wasn’t good enough for her, and so I called Melissa, and was like, ‘Please don’t do this, like this isn’t good for her career," Sia said during a 2020 interview on the "Zach Sang Show."
"It’s not good for her long-term credibility. This is not a good co-star to be in a movie with. So I just try and help guide. I can be a pain in the butt. I think her manager thinks I’m a real pain in the butt, I’m sure.”
During Sia's interview on Sirius XM's "Fierce: Women in Music," the singer spoke about how she feels protective of Ziegler and her fame, according to Just Jared.
“I provide her 24-hour security because I feel responsible for her ensuing fame,” Sia said of Ziegler.
She also revealed that often she will decline photos on Ziegler's behalf if she gets the sense the former "Dance Moms" star is feeling overwhelmed.
She also revealed that often she will decline photos on Ziegler's behalf if she gets the sense the former "Dance Moms" star is feeling overwhelmed.
“I can tell from Maddie‘s face whether she wants to do it or she doesn’t,” Sia said. “And so I either say, ‘No, you know, we’re not supposed to be in town’ or ‘We’re not doing photos today’ or ‘Actually we’re just having some family time.’”
Trivia[]
References[]
