Gary Miller/Getty ImagesThere's more to Sia's wig than just style.
The "Chandelier" songstress is as famous for her identity-concealing wig as she is for her musical pipes. However, while it has shaped her signature look, the platinum bob has also become a personal barricade to help calm her crippling stage fright. In fact, the Australian native was so nervous for her scheduled performance on Good Morning America Friday that she admitted to getting emotional before it was time to hit the stage.
"I just cried in the dressing room," she told co-host Amy Robach. "I'm really croaky and I was like 'I'm not going to hit the high note and I want everyone to like me.' It's scary to perform!"
The chart-topping performer may appear cool, calm and collected with a mic in her hand, but the 40-year-old admitted she's actually quite afraid of her profession. "I do not love performing," she said during the show. "I get really scared."
Fortunately, Sia is in successful company. She's just one of many award-winning musicians who have admitted to major pre-show jitters, including a 40-time Grammy Award nominee.
Barbra Streisand, a legendary singer in the industry, became a household name for her portrayals of passionate and steadfast performers like Fanny Brice in Funny Girl. Ironically, the actress is admittedly bashful about singing in front of people. In fact, the Oscar winner says the darker the room, the better.
"I'm very shy," she previously told Oprah Winfrey. "I don't like singing. I could never perform in a living room. I could never get up and sing in a living room. I can't do that...seeing the people's faces."
Lorde shares the legend's anxiety. "I, like, totally threw up before my show last night," she told The West Australian. "I am reduced by nerves. I can be completely crushed by feelings of all kinds." While the 19-year-old "Royals" singer has earned herself two Grammy Awards since she first arrived on the music scene, those jitters still creep up.
"It's definitely feeling like a really comfortable place for me now," she continued to the newspaper. "But I get nervous, I get freaked out, I get, you know, the usual stuff."
Adele is another famous voice rolling in deep stage fright. While the 28-year-old British star is in the middle of her latest world tour, she admitted years ago that touring triggers anxiety attacks for her.
"I'm scared of audiences," she told Rolling Stone in 2011. "I get shitty scared. One show in Amsterdam, I was so nervous I escaped out the fire exit. I've thrown up a couple of times. Once in Brussels, I projectile-vomited on someone. I just gotta bear it. But I don't like touring. I have anxiety attacks a lot."
It's a challenge she still struggles with today, admitting to Today's Matt Lauer in 2015 that the nerves came on before she hit the stage for her one-night-only special at Radio City Music Hall. "I saw the crowd and I just melted," she said. "After the second or third song, I was chill, I was alright."
She's spent her entire life in the spotlight, first as Judy Garland's daughter and later as an Oscar-winning actress, but all that time has not prevented Liza Minnelli from clamming up in front of the lights and cameras. However, by the time she reached her 60s, the icon explained her nerves had taken on a new form. "It's a different kind of nervous," she told Harper's Bazaar in 2011. "It's like a race horse gets nervous. Because I want to do it right."