Kate DeAraugo was seen for the first time in months on Tuesday as she headed to a speaking event in Sydney.

And the former Australian Idol star unveiled a very glam makeover and looked as radiant as ever.

The reality TV personality, 39, who won the 2005 season of the singing contest, is now seven years sober after a shocking drug addiction.

In 2017, she hit rock bottom and pleaded guilty to possessing crystal meth, drug driving and weapons offences.

But the singer has now put all that behind her, and was beaming ear-to-ear during her outing this week.

Kate looked incredibly chic in a red cardigan teamed with dark blue jeans and crisp white sneakers.

Kate DeAraugo was seen for the first time in months on Tuesday as she headed to a speaking event in Sydney

The former Australia Idol star, who won the 2005 season, pleaded guilty to possessing crystal meth, drug driving, and weapons offences in 2017. Pictured at Sydney Downing Centre District Court in 2015

She appears to have added hair extensions to her glossy blonde locks, and was glammed up in a perfect application of makeup which included a smoky eye and nude, glossy lip.

Kate recently opened up about how winning the third series of the enduring reality TV singing competition Australian Idol fuelled and funded her drug addiction.

She found herself at rock bottom in 2017 after pleading guilty to possessing crystal meth, drug driving and weapons offences.

Avoiding conviction, she was placed on a community corrections order and has since made every effort to rehabilitate herself and transform her life.

She is now seven years sober from the highly addictive drug, and is opening up about her experience to help others struggling with addiction.

‘Do I blame winning Australian Idol for my drug addiction?’ she said on TikTok earlier this year.

‘I will say that it probably gave me the means to use way more drugs and create a bigger habit quicker than I would have.’

She went on to say that if she’d simply been a ‘normal 18-year-old doing normal 18-year-old things’ she may have avoided falling into drug addiction altogether.

But the singer has now put all that behind her, and was beaming ear-to-ear during her outing this week

Kate looked incredibly chic in a red cardigan teamed with dark blue jeans and crisp white sneakers

‘But do I blame them for my addiction?’ she continued.

‘I can’t. I was an addict way before any of that.’

The Bendigo-born star admitted she engaged in ‘heaps of other really unhealthy and unmanageable behaviours,’ from a really young age.

‘Starting with food,’ she said.

Kate has previously spoken about the binge eating disorder which she suffered throughout her high school years.

Speaking on her own podcast Why Do I Feel This Way? in 2023, Kate said she began to engage in binge eating from the age of five.

‘That was my first way of regulating those emotions and those out of control feelings of not being comfortable in my skin,’ she said.

Kate was the third ever winner of Australian Idol, and said she ‘wasn’t introduced to drugs properly until after the show happened‘.

‘That is where my addiction really took off, but I truly believe that it would have happened one way or another,’ she said.

She appears to have added hair extensions to her glossy blonde locks, and was glammed up in a perfect application of makeup which included a smoky eye and nude, glossy lip

‘So as easy as it would be to blame Australian Idol and/or the music industry for my addiction, I just can’t because I don’t believe that’s true.’

After winning Idol, Kate signed to SONY BMG records and released her debut single Maybe Tonight in November 2005.

The single debuted at No.1 on the ARIA charts and went platinum, as did the singer’s debut album, A Place I’ve Never Been.

She went on to join the multi-platinum selling Australian girl group The Young Divas, alongside fellow Idol stars Ricki-Lee Coulter, Paulini, Emily Williams, and Jessica Mauboy, before disbanding in 2008.