Kylie Minogue is as much an honorary national treasure as she is an enigma. Despite spending four decades in the spotlight, the 'Princess of Pop' has kept her private world largely behind a velvet curtain – until now.
With a highly anticipated, three-part Netflix documentary out this week, one that is set to pull back the lens on her extraordinary life, Kylie is finally ready to tell her story.
Yet when HELLO! meets the "five foot and a whisper" superstar at a suite in Soho's Ham Yard Hotel, dressed in full glam, of course, she is playfully apprehensive about its imminent release. "It's not out in the wild yet," she says, "so I've yet to see what the result is out there."
© Courtesy of Netflix"It" is a fascinating and celebratory retrospective. From her breakout success as Charlene on Neighbours in the late 1980s to her evolution into a global pop icon with more than 80 million records sold, the documentary spans the full, vibrant gamut of Kylie's career. Nevertheless, taking part was clearly an overwhelming experience for the notoriously private star.
"The trust fall was one worth taking," she says of working with Michael Harte, the BAFTA-winning director behind similar Netflix documentaries on Sir David Beckham and Michael J. Fox, "but the process was deep, long, it was a lot of work. But I think we all wanted to work hard and get a good result."
The documentary sees Kylie – who recently returned to her native Australia after nearly three decades living in the UK – sitting in a long-time friend's apartment in Paris as she sifts through her archives, revealing never-before-seen personal photographs and home videos.
"I'd come across archive after archive for months and months," she tells us of the process, adding that often unmarked video tapes "from God knows when" would spark memories and that she’d quickly have to get the camera set up to film her reaction. "I think we had some lucky breaks along the way."
Kylie and Jason
One of the lucky breaks was getting former boyfriend and Neighbours co-star Jason Donovan, who she dated from 1986 to 1989, to contribute to the documentary. The pair famously became close while playing on-screen sweethearts Scott Robinson and Charlene Mitchell on the Australian soap and Jason, in a highlight of the first episode, is surprisingly candid about their love affair.
He appears heartbroken as he admits he thought they would get married and start a family together, while also using colourful language when complaining that to this day, he's still constantly asked by cab drivers about their romance.
© Getty ImagesSo how did Kylie feel about Jason dropping these truth bombs? "There's some clangers!" she laughs. "It's just unreal. I just thought that's quintessential Jason Donovan. Maybe all of us, as we kind of go through life, become [bigger] versions of ourselves. I just thought that’s so JD. Swearing, telling it how it is.
"So I love seeing how he felt at ease enough to be really truthful, even when it was a painful conversation. I appreciated it so much.
"I didn't know what any of the contributors had said. I didn’t know what the shape of the documentary was. It was all revealed to me when I went to see it. So you can only imagine it was…"
"I was very moved by what Jason said and also all the footage of us in Neighbours. Very fond memories."
The painful conversation Kylie alludes to occurs when a clearly saddened Jason is asked about his feelings towards the late Michael Hutchence. Michael famously dated Kylie for two years following her 1989 split from Jason – a break-up that, at the time, appeared particularly bitter from Jason’s perspective. "I could tell something wasn’t right. I could tell. I could smell it," Jason says in the documentary.
In her rock'n'roll era
Kylie tells us that for her, speaking about Michael, who died by suicide in 1997, was understandably emotional. "That was the first time I cried on camera in the interviews," she says. "I was like 'uh oh, uh oh, uh oh', I knew it was gonna happen and here it comes. I didn't think it would be about that conversation. But when I really think about him and talk about him, I can often just feel his presence and think about that time.
"In the conversations about Michael, I was really trying to put myself back in the moment, so I would become more emotional, which was interesting. I think it was good. I think maybe it’s just something that people can relate to."
© RedfernsThe documentary reveals that Michael led Kylie into a decadent, rock'n'roll lifestyle and a journey of self-discovery that helped to change her image from innocent soap star to a pixie-cropped pop diva.
Their ultimate split left her "devastated" and, in one of the most revealing moments of the series, she says: "It was definitely an amazing point in time and I've probably been looking for something like that ever since – and I haven’t got it."
The documentary also explores the "devilish" rumours of her past, touching on whispers of a high-octane "sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll" lifestyle during her most rebellious era. Ever the professional, Kylie remains expertly tight-lipped, letting the mystery of those wilder years speak for itself.
Private life
"I like to keep the mystery," she tells HELLO!. "I am not a kind of 'here it all is…', I don't think I'll ever be that person. And I think for one's own sanity, you need to keep ... I mean, it probably sounds at odds as I’m sitting in front of a documentary poster."
"I've lived a public life, but I am still a very private person."
© InstagramHowever, the singer did agree to having her whole family appear together on film for the first time. In a touching scene, Kylie is joined by her sister Dannii, her mother Carol, father Ronald, and rarely seen brother Brendan.
"There is not a world in which my parents are gonna sit down and do a talking head interview. They don’t do that," she tells us. "So I really have to speak with all the family before kind of hitting the green light."
Kylie explains that if she found anything family-related in her archives, she would immediately check in with them to ensure that they were happy with the result. "Anything that had family in it? I sent it to them first. So, yeah, again, it’s been a process. If it was my archive, that was fine, but anything to do with family, I needed them to be okay with it."
Cancer battle
In the final episode, Kylie delves into her huge pop comeback with 'Spinning Around' in 2000, as well as her cancer battle, which she admits was a "struggle" to relive for the documentary.
© NetflixIn May 2005 and at the age of 36, Kylie was told that she had breast cancer, leading her to cancel her tour and Glastonbury appearance for surgery and chemotherapy. After undergoing treatment in Melbourne and Paris, she was given the all-clear in 2006 and she returned successfully to the stage.
After a long pause, Kylie tells HELLO! that the experience of discussing this was "both cathartic and difficult. You know, I'm talking about it from a vantage point where I’m not in that situation now, so my only struggle with that is I can never really tell that whole story because there’s a lot to it and it doesn’t kind of come and go. It’s something you still have to navigate."
Kylie says emotionally that she can’t help but quote her own song 'Story', a deeply personal closing track from her hit 2023 album Tension, where the lyrics reflect on overcoming personal difficulties with the support of others. "I knew that [the cancer battle] would be part of the story. I just keep going to the song, were you part of my story?"
Reflecting on our conversation about holding back private matters such as these, she tells us: "Again, I think my audience, in general, know there’s boundaries and are happy to exist with me either reading between the lines or knowing that – you've got my heart, but my common sense holds me back a little bit. And I’m happy with that ratio."
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