'It just, like, blew up': How a Facebook ad sent a Kiwi teen to Argentinian pop stardom

A Christchurch teen has attracted a legion of social media fans in Argentina after her mother spotted an ad on Facebook.

The reality show Popstars: Argentina was auditioning 15,000 hopefuls to form a girl group.

Nineteen-year-old Coco, born in Argentina and raised in Christchurch, was in her bedroom getting ready to go out and feeling “iffy” about filming an audition in just a few hours.

But her mother wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“She was like, ‘I’m making you do it because it’s where you were born’,” Coco recalls.

She ended up doing a brief a cappella video in one take.

“I didn’t even put thought into it at all because she saw it on Facebook, and sometimes there’s scams, so I don’t know how legit this is.”

A few weeks later, the Cashmere High School graduate was in Argentina competing for her spot in South America’s next big girl group.

“Mum said you’re in and need to fly to Argentina for the next round in five days.”

The 15,000 were whittled down to 3000 for in-person auditions. After 27 hours of travel, Coco was immediately put in line with girls aged 18 to 25, all with a shared goal.

“I was like, oh my gosh, what am I doing here?”

The first round was brutally efficient. “I went in, and then the people were like, ‘OK, you have 30 seconds to sing at the same time as five people in front of a camera, and then we’ll tell you if you pass.’

“It was the whole day from 10am to 10pm, you’re not allowed to say anything; you just had to sing into a camera and leave.”

She and about 250 others made the next round.

“I was like, that’s enough for me. If that’s all I get, that’s enough.”

Round two came with a list of approved songs, from which Coco chose Ariana Grande’s Dangerous Woman.

That audition video has amassed more than 4.5 million views on social media.

“Obviously, the time difference is insane, so I woke up and I was like, what the heck is going on?

“It just, like, blew up.”

What followed was more than two months of rehearsals and auditions, each round longer and more demanding.

“You go in at 9am, and you’ve warmed up your whole voice and everything, and then you don’t sing till like 2pm because they’ve got so much production to do as well.”

The fourth round involved dancing, which was comfortable for Coco, who has danced since 3 and is dancing full-time at The Conservatory in Auckland.

After reaching the top 60, she was invited to join the show’s academy. She was handed 12 songs to learn in one night, all in Spanish.

“Although I speak Spanish to my mum, when you go there, they all only speak Spanish, so they’ve got all this slang.

“It took a bit of a toll on me because I was trying to pick up everything.

19-year-old Coco reached the top 60 before being eliminated on the reality show. Photo / Connie Maria

“I did an all-nighter freaking out because I didn’t know any of the songs. I obviously don’t live there, and they’re not the top hits in New Zealand.

“I was so stressed out, and I had them repeating in my headphones as I slept.”

The next day, she gave the audition everything she had.

“I thought I nailed it, but that’s the round I got eliminated on, and I had like a full panic attack on TV.”

The hardest part, she said, was how much she’d grown to want it.

“At the start, in the first audition, I thought, that’s enough; whatever happens, now happens. I’m already this far in.

“But then the closer you get to it, you want it more. It’s crazy.

“I don’t think I’ve ever said to my mum, ‘I want to be in a girl group from Argentina,’ then as soon as you’re in it, it’s like, oh my gosh, it’s my biggest dream ever, I have to have this.

“Then it’s crazy how quickly it can go away as well.”

She was upset by the elimination and daunted by returning to reality, “coming back to your everyday routine when you’ve been in something that feels so big is really scary.”

Now living in Auckland, she works with music producer Dean Martin.

She’s planning to step away from full-time dance and commit to releasing more music.

“Oh, and I just wanna perform; in arenas and stadiums and tour the world, I just wanna do shows and make people feel like dancing and feel happy.”

After her Popstars experience, Coco plans to step away from fulltime dance and release more music. Photo / Connie Maria

A New Zealand format, gone global

Popstars, screening on Disney+ Latin America, is a Kiwi format.

Created by producer Jonathan Dowling and first broadcast on TV2 in 1999, long before The X Factor or The Voice, Popstars laid down a blueprint for reality music competition.

Argentina picked it up in 2001, and the first season produced the hugely successful girl group Bandana, followed by boy band Mambrú in 2002.

The 2026 reboot is part of a renaissance in successful “find the next big thing” TV shows. Global girl group Katseye formed through the 2023 US and Korean collaboration, The Debut: Dream Academy.

Katseye have accumulated more than eight billion streams across all platforms, according to Song Stats.

Rosie Leishman is a reporter and multimedia journalist based in Ōtautahi, Christchurch. She joined Newstalk ZB in 2025, after working at the Bangkok Post in Thailand.