In 2005, the world watched as she bravely battled breast cancer at the age of just 36.
But now, Kylie Minogue has revealed that she went through cancer for a second time just five years ago, which left her a ‘shell of a person.’
The Princess of Pop, 57, tearfully recalled keeping her 2021 diagnosis a secret from the public during her recent career resurgence in the third episode of her candid Netflix documentary.
In KYLIE, a three-part series that lands on the streamer on Wednesday, the singer revealed that she had been at such a low point during the illness that she ‘didn’t want to leave the house’.
She said she’d been trying to find the ‘right time’ to tell her fans about her second primary breast cancer, diagnosed during a routine check-up, but struggled to do so and ended up keeping it to herself for five years.
‘My second cancer diagnosis was in 2021,’ she said in the closing minutes of the documentary, sitting with her songwriting team.
She said she was ‘able to keep that to myself’, unlike the ‘first time’, during which every move she made was documented.
Kylie Minogue has revealed that she went through cancer for a second time just five years ago, which left her a ‘shell of a person’
‘I’ve been trying to find the right time to say it,’ she said.
‘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.
‘I didn’t want to leave the house again at one point.’
Her hit comeback single Padam Padam was released in 2023 and it became the song of the summer, even winning a Grammy Award for Best Pop Dance Recording.
But behind the scenes, Minogue was still battling cancer and, while keen to tell the world, never quite found the right opportunity.
‘Padam Padam opened so many doors for me but on the inside I knew that cancer wasn’t just a blip in my life,’ she said.
‘And I really just wanted to say what happened so I can let go of it.
‘I would sit through interviews and every opportunity I thought, “Now’s the time,” but I kept it to myself.’
The singer revealed that her song Story, written for her sixteenth studio album, Tension, was about her second cancer battle.
Unbeknownst to fans, the song detailed her diagnosis, with lyrics including: ‘I had a secret that I kept to myself, yeah/ I had a one-way ticket that was goin’ nowhere.’
Should celebrities feel pressured to share their private health battles with the public?
The Princess of Pop, 57, tearfully recalled keeping her 2021 diagnosis a secret from the public during her recent career resurgence in the third episode of her candid Netflix documentary
‘It was important but crucially, I didn’t feel obliged,’ Minogue has said of her decision to speak about her second diagnosis in the documentary.
‘I was thankful it was my decision and my choice to share. Making this documentary has meant looking back at so many pivotal moments in my life and this was another one.’
She said she hoped her decision to discuss it would help someone who could ‘benefit from a gentle reminder to do their check-ups.’
She added: ‘Early detection was very helpful and I am so grateful to be able to say that I am well today.’
Minogue said that ‘thankfully I got through it again’ and now ‘all is well.’
The Australian pop star, who rose to fame in the 1980s on hit soap Neighbours, was at the height of her career and gearing up to headline Glastonbury when she first fell ill in 2005.
She was forced to pull out of the festival and cancel a series of London shows as she underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy in Paris, with her family and then-boyfriend Olivier Martinez by her side.
And now she has revealed that she actually postponed her treatment to first undergo numerous rounds of IVF in the hopes of having a child.
‘I was 36 when I got my diagnoses so already it’s – you need to be thinking about children,’ she said in the documentary.
‘So I did try, I even postponed my chemotherapy to try, which was quite scary at the time because you just want it out, gone.’
The Australian pop star, who rose to fame in the 1980s on hit soap Neighbours, was at the height of her career and gearing up to headline Glastonbury when she first fell ill in 2005
She said she tried ‘a few times’ to conceive via IVF, always ‘with such a thread of hope,’ believing that she ‘couldn’t not try.’
‘If it had happened it would have been just shy of a miracle. But it didn’t work out that way,’ she said.
In emotional scenes, Minogue read out a letter that she had written to a future child while going through the process.
She read: ‘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, or not at all, for who knows which way the wind is going to blow’.
Speaking in the documentary, her sister Dannii Minogue, 54, said: ‘I never saw myself being a parent and she always did and that is just heartbreaking.’
