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Guy Sebastian's eye-watering first Australian Idol pay cheque revealed

Ian 'Dicko' Dickson has spilled on the singer's huge pay day.

Former Australian Idol judge Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson has revealed the enormous first pay cheque Guy Sebastian received after winning the reality show’s inaugural season in 2003.

The music mogul spoke openly with his campmates during Monday night’s episode of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! about his relationship with Guy and how he handed the then-21-year-old singer a seven-figure royalties cheque over a bowl of pasta.

Guy Sebastian singing after Australian Idol in 2003.
Guy Sebastian received a whopping seven-figure royalties pay cheque after winning Australian Idol. Photo: Getty

“He’d won Idol and had been a massive success,” he detailed. “[It was] the fastest-selling album of all time, beat [John Farnham’s] Whispering Jack. He did a great job on it.

“We went out and took him for a bowl of pasta and after the lunch, we handed him an envelope. He said, ‘What’s this?’. We said it’s your first royalty cheque for all the records you’ve sold. And he took out the cheque and it said. ‘Guy Sebastian, one million dollars.’”

“I’d never done it before and never done it since, but it was a special moment to give him a one million dollar cheque over a bowl of pasta.”

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Dicko went on to say that Guy, whose debut single Angels Brought Me Here was the highest-selling single in Australia in 2003 and reached 5x platinum, had a sweet response when asked how he planned on spending the money.

“He went, ‘I’m going to buy a tinnie [boat] and take my brothers fishing’,” Dicko recalled. “I went, ‘Yeah, good work’.”

Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson on I'm A Celebrity.
Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson said it was a ‘special moment’ for him in his career. Photo: Channel 10

20 years after winning Idol, Guy has become one of Australia’s most successful recording artists. He’s received 34 ARIA Award nominations, released 10 top 10 albums and achieved 23 top 20 singles - including six number ones.

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Guy also served as a judge on The X Factor for five seasons, has been a coach on The Voice since 2019, and was Australia’s first representative at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2015.

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