In Brief

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has had a luminous and long career in the opera world. A world renowned soprano, Dame Kiri isn’t a woman known to get her panties in a bunch.

But that’s exactly what happened when she pulled out of a series of 2005 concerts with the Australian singing legend, John Farnham.

The reason? In the same vein as Tom Jones, it seems women like to throw their “unmentionables’ at Farnham during concerts.

Dame Kiri wasn’t going to let that fly.

"I was concerned about the knickers or underpants ... being thrown at him and him collecting it and ... holding it in his hands as some sort of trophy," said the singer, whose international performances included the 1981 wedding of Britain's Prince Charles and Diana Spencer.

Farnham’s camp contends that the opera diva was actually upset over Farnham missing her birthday party.

It’s her party and she’ll pull out of a tour if she wants to …

In the end, the courts ruled in favor of Dame Kiri. Whether the tour fell through due to a revulsion of thongs flying through the air, or just hurt feelings for a party with pony rides (I made the pony part up – but if I were a famous opera diva, my birthday party would have pony rides!) there wasn’t a concluded contract worthy of “breaking.”

The moral of the story lies somewhere under there …

Just made you say underwear!

-Kari G.