The Voice contestant shares most bizarre sob story ever after disaster diving trip

The Voice Australia reached new heights when it came to contestant backstories on Sunday night. 

Singer Lau Abend, 21, recalled being left behind at sea by a boat after a disaster diving trip in Palau, a country in the western Pacific Ocean. 

The tale came complete with a dramatic reenactment and moody shots of the performer looking out pensively at the ocean. 

‘Music definitely helped me during quite a difficult experience. In 2016, I went overseas with my family to Palau. We went scuba-diving,’ she explained. 

‘On a particular dive, we were swimming in the blue for about 15 minutes, which means swimming with no physical features around you, just clear blue water. 

‘The current was pushing all of us so far away that it wasn’t until we got to the surface that we realised the boat had actually gone.’ 

No expense spared: The tale came complete with a dramatic reenactment

Deep blue: It also featured moody shots of the performer looking out pensively at the ocean

Then then-teenager spent over five hours in the water, and sang to comfort herself and her fellow divers.   

‘There was an hour and a half left of sunlight. You could see the reef sharks below.  It didn’t really hit us until we were kind of floating there for quite a long time I was constantly thinking, ‘Will I die?’ 

‘I sang to keep the morale up while we were floating. Music definitely gives me hope. At the five-and-a-half-hour mark, a boat pulled up,’ she explained. 

Scary: ‘I sang to keep the morale up while we were floating. Music definitely gives me hope. At the five-and-a-half-hour mark, a boat pulled up,’ she explained

Lau added hopefully: ‘It was definitely a defining moment in my life let any opportunity go to waste. So, to be here today and to sing, I’m so excited. Hopefully this is the first step.’

While the dramatic story should have left viewers enraptured, instead, many complained on social media that the ‘sob stories’ on the show were becoming overly long and ridiculous – and have nothing to do with the singer’s ability. 

‘I can’t sing but I have a tragic back story… should I apply next year?’ one person Tweeted, while another added, ‘I really don’t need to know everybody’s sob story. Honestly don’t even care’. 

But why: While the dramatic story should have left viewers enraptured, instead, many complained on social media that the ‘sob stories’ on the show were becoming overly long and ridiculous – and have nothing to do with the singer’s ability

Someone else agreed: ‘Is it bad I just want to hear the singing and not these back stories that seem to be getting longer and longer?’ 

One more said: ‘I feel for this girl after what she went through but it shouldn’t have anything to do with her singing and her voice… no more back stories please’. 

Another chimed in:  ‘I wish they kept the back stories until after the final group are selected. Before that, totally irrelevant and waste of time.’

One person Tweeted: ‘I feel for this girl after what she went through but it shouldn’t have anything to do with her singing and her voice… no more back stories please’

Yet one more agreed: ‘The only acceptable sob story is that you’ve had larynx removed and now you’re singing at #TheVoiceAU’.

‘How annoying would it be if you’re about to die and some mf won’t stop singing?’ someone mocked. 

While one more Tweeted: ‘This will be a hard sob story to top. My personal choice would be raised by wolves or jumping out of burning space station’.

Another chimed in: ‘I wish they kept the back stories until after the final group are selected. Before that, totally irrelevant and waste of time’