Purple Wiggle Jeff Fatt explains the surprising origin of his trademark sleeping act

He may have bid farewell to his beloved purple skivvy years ago, but Jeff Fatt will always be a Wiggle at heart.  

Appearing in a newly resurfaced video, 66-year-old spoke to ABC about the evolution of The Wiggles, his personal battles, and the truth behind his character’s iconic tune, ‘Wake Up Jeff’.  

Jeff’s onstage trademark was to ‘fall asleep’ mid-way through performances- a playful act that invited children to make loud noises to ‘wake him up’. 

However, play-sleeping wasn’t always part of Jeff’s routine. 

‘It used to be Anthony Field that would fall asleep, and the children got to wake Anthony up. But it really suited me because it was a bit of a mask,’ he explained in the sit-down interview.   

‘I’d actually say, I’m very shy and introverted because I was the only non pre-school teacher and I had very little experience in dealing with children,’ he said. 

‘It was a way of getting me involved and on stage and as it turns out, it’s such an empowering thing for a child to be able to wake up a grown-up,’ added Jeff. 

Later in the documentary, the musician revealed that The Wiggles didn’t always wear their famous coloured skivvies. 

‘Originally, our skivvies weren’t skivvies. On the very first album cover we were wearing these very bright, garish-looking shirts,’ he said, as a photo of the cover splashed on screen. 

‘It was a way of getting me involved and on stage’: The documentary featured archival footage of Jeff pretending to sleep in front of an audience of children 

‘To be able to have one particular colour was easier for a child to identify who the Wiggle was. So we each rushed out and lay claim to a particular colour skivvy.’ 

In 2011, Jeff experienced a near-death encounter that would change the trajectory of his career for good. 

‘I was driving home one evening and I was starting to feel a bit faint.  Before I could pull off the road, it just really overcame me and I basically had a blackout,’ he told the camera. 

‘I was driving home one evening and I was starting to feel a bit faint’: In 2011, Jeff experienced a near-death encounter that would change the trajectory of his career for good

‘The next thing I knew I was coming to and there was this tree in front of the van I was driving and I thought, ‘Woah! Yeah, that could have been the end,” he divulged. 

Doctors diagnosed Jeff wit a heart arrhythmia and fitted him with a pacemaker, telling the performer that his heart had actually stopped beating for a few seconds before the crash.  

‘That really was a wake-up call for myself to be able to see that The Wiggles can not go on,’ he said, adding: ‘So that really made the decision for me to hand the reigns over to the new Wiggles all the more easier.’

In May 2012, it was announced that Jeff would leave The Wiggles along with Greg Page and Murray Cook. 

Current band-member Lachlan Gillespie replaced Jeff as the purple Wiggle.  

Fresh faces: Current band-member Lachlan Gillespie (right, pictured with yellow Wiggle Emma Watkins) replaced Jeff as the purple Wiggle