Kylie Minogue was diagnosed with cancer for a second time in early 2021, the pop star has revealed, after being diagnosed and successfully treated for breast cancer in 2005.
The Australian pop star said she kept it hidden from the public because of the press frenzy surrounding her first cancer ordeal, and because she was a “shell of a person”.
Minogue spoke about the experience in her new Netflix documentary, Kylie, which was released to the streaming platform today (20 May).
“My second cancer diagnosis was in early 2021,” she said. “I was able to keep that to myself… Not like the first time.”
Minogue, 57, said she struggled to find “the right time” to disclose her treatment, including when she was promoting her hit 2023 single “Padam Padam”.
“I don’t feel obliged to tell the world, and actually I just couldn’t at the time because I was just a shell of a person,” she said in the emotional scene. “I didn’t want to leave the house again at one point.
“Padam Padam opened so many doors for me, but on the inside I knew that cancer wasn’t just a blip in my life. And I really just wanted to say what happened so I can let go of it. I’d sit through and every opportunity I thought, ‘Now’s the time,’ but I kept it to myself.”
During her first diagnosis, when she was 36, the “Spinning Around” star suffered enormous press intrusion, as the family home was surrounded by paparazzi and medical staff were offered money to take photos of her.
Minogue was also forced to cancel the remainder of her Showgirl greatest hits tour and withdraw from her 2005 Sunday headline slot on Glastonbury festival’s Pyramid Stage, in order to undergo treatment in Melbourne.
Of her second cancer diagnosis she remarked: “Thankfully, I got through it. Again. And all is well.”
She revealed that her 2023 song “Story”, from her album Tension, addressed that difficult period in her life, as she sings: “I had a secret that I kept to myself… Turn another page, baby take the stage.”
“I needed to have something that marked that time,” she said, adding: “Hey, who knows what’s around the corner, but pop music nurtures me… my passion for music is greater than ever.”
In the same episode, Minogue revealed that she pushed back her breast cancer treatment after her 2005 diagnosis to try and have children.
The pop star said she tried “a few times” with IVF while also dealing with cancer: “There’s so much more to cancer than just, you had it, you got through it, you’re fine… or you’re fine for now,” Minogue said.
“I was 36 when I got my diagnosis, so already you need to be thinking about children. So I did try, I even postponed my chemotherapy to try, which is quite scary at the time, because you just want it… out, gone. I want to feel safe, I don’t want this. But I did try a few times with IVF, always with such a thread of hope. But I couldn’t not try.”
“If it had happened, it would have been just shy of a miracle," Minogue said, “but it didn’t work out that way.”
Minogue explained that she wrote her 2012 song “Flower” to “what might have been”, to the child she was unsure she’d be able to have: “Distant child, my flower/ Are you blowing in the breeze?/ Can you feel me as I breathe life into you?/ Wrapped in a blanket of hope, asleep in a bed of dreams/ My step into eternity is not what it might have been.”
“One can’t help but wonder what it would have been like, and I’m so close to my family… it wasn’t my path. So that’s what I was writing about... I was kind of hopeful and realistic at the same time.”
Minogue finally got to play Glastonbury in 2019, in a triumphant performance on the Legends Slot.
Her career continues to go from strength to strength: she had a Christmas number one last year with her single “Xmas”, while the accompanying album Kylie Christmas (Fully Wrapped) also topped the charts.
The Kylie documentary is out now on Netflix in three parts. Along with the pop star herself, it features interviews with her younger sister, Dannii Minogue, and former duet partners Jason Donovan and Nick Cave.
