"Russell Said Get In There And Do Your Best"

"Russell's very supportive," Spencer told WHO in this week's issue, on sale today

He was filming Les Miserables with Hugh Jackman in Britain, but “He did watch and really enjoyed it, which is nice,” Danielle Spencer tells WHO of husband Russell Crowe’s approval following her April 15 debut on Dancing With The Stars. “He told me to get in there and do my best.”

Yet despite Crowe’s support and praise from judge Todd McKenney for her Viennese Waltz, the decision to appear on reality TV is not one singer/songwriter Spencer, 42, made lightly.

Drawn to the show for it’s physical aspect, “To put myself out there to be edited and put into a context that’s beyond my control is definitely out of my comfort zone,” she concedes. The couple prefer to “fly under the radar” outside of work for the sake of their sons Charlie, 8, and Tennyson, 5.

Opting not to include them in photo shoots, “We try to keep life very normal for them,” says Spencer, who released her second album, Calling All Magicians, in 2010, after a nine year hiatus to focus on motherhood. “I am a normal person, you know, just doing all the things we all do every day to keep our lives ticking over.”

When the family are all together at their home in Sydney’s East, weekends are spent “just hanging out—nothing outrageous,” she explains of regularly taking the boys for walks at Sydney Harbour’s Nielsen Park, where Crowe is known to kick a football with them.

“There are those moments in your life when it becomes crazy and surreal and you jet off to do something amazing,” she admits. “But then I come home and life goes back to normal.”

As for whether her three leading men will make a cameo in the studio audience? “I hope so,” says Spencer, who is raising money for the Australian Children’s Music Foundation. “It will depend on [Russell’s] filming schedule. Oh, and I guess the longer I stay in, the more chance he’ll come!”

To see Danielle in action, tune in to Dancing With The Stars, Sundays at 6.30PM on Seven

To read Danielle Spencer's Exclusive Interview with WHO, be sure to pick up this week's issue of WHO, on sale today.

Inside This Week's WHO Magazine