Nathan Foley
Nathan Joel Foley (born 27 September 1979) is an Australian singer-songwriter and television personality. He was an original member of Australian children's musical group Hi-5 from 1998 to 2008.
Biography
Early life and career
Nathan Joel Foley was born on 27 September 1979 to Julie (née Ashton) and Leslie Foley in Liverpool Hospital at Sydney's Greater Western Sydney metropolitan area. Through his mother's side, Foley is a descendant of the Yuin people, a group of Australian Aboriginal peoples from the South Coast of New South Wales. The couple divorced when Nathan was only around 2-3 years old. When Foley was 5 years old, he came across a vinyl record of the Jackson 5 while visiting his father at his workplace and once he heard the record, he instantly knew he wanted to become a singer. Foley started singing professionally at 10 years old with bands singing Jazz, Soul, R&B, Pop and Rock in clubs in Sydney, Australia. During his school years, Foley performed in the Coca-Cola Schools Spectacular for seven years as a soloist working with big bands and orchestra's and graduated from the Talent Development Project in 1997.
Hi-5 (1998-2008)
Through the Talent Development Project, Foley was offered an audition for a children's pop group and television series at the ABC Studios, that group eventually became Hi-5, and Foley would become a mainstay member of the band before leaving after ten years, expressing interest in focusing on his adult music career. He was replaced by Tim Maddren.
After Hi-5
In 2009, Foley completed a season of Jerry Springer: The Opera at the Sydney Opera House and played Kenickie in the Olivia Newton-John Foundation musical Grease on the Beach. He also performed as a soloist in 2009 at The V8 Supercars and World Masters Games, and sung the National Anthem at the Darling Harbour Australia Day Celebrations in 2010 in front of quarter of a million people.
Foley performed in the musical Mamma Mia!, touring Australia in 2010. He was also Co-Presenter of a show called Gathering on Foxtel's Indigenous Network NITV. Also in 2011, he worked as a traffic reporter at the Australian Traffic network delivering traffic reports for Ten News, Mix 106.5, 101.7 WSFM, 2GO, Sea FM, Triple M, 2GB and 2UE.
Foley was a top 3 contestant on the Network 10 show I Will Survive.
In 2016, Foley won Princess cruises Entertainer of the year for his big band solo shows being the first Australian to win this title.
In 2019, Foley auditioned for The Voice and was placed on Delta Goodrem's team. Foley was eliminated in the first Knock-out rounds.
Personal life
Through the show, he became good friends with and eventually in 2002 began dating fellow Hi-5 cast member Kellie Hoggart. The couple became engaged in 2005 to be married in March 2007. On 7 December 2006, it was reported that Crawford and Foley had decided to end their engagement. Apparently, their breakup had occurred some time prior to the reports.
Foley married Jamaican model Nicolette Gomex in March 2020, and they have one child, Jackson Joel Foley.