Kylie Minogue reveals all on love, life and heartbreak as she vows to perform into her 80s
FOR almost four decades, Kylie Minogue has soundtracked our lives with anthems of love, joy and heartbreak.
While her own personal life has seen both stellar highs and crushing lows — including failed romances, and cancer — she has kept calm and carried on, and on, then on some more.
As for those gold hotpants from her 2000 video for disco belter Spinning Around, they brightened up all our lives, to the point they are now under lock and key in a museum.
But as Kylie, 57, sits down with me for her only newspaper chat ahead of her self-titled Netflix docuseries that airs on Wednesday, she insists she is just like the rest of us when heartbroken.
In the TV tell-all, she recalls her devastating 1991 split from the late INXS frontman, Aussie Michael Hutchence, after a passionate two-year romance — and how she slept on a pal’s sofa in Paris while unable to face the couple’s old stomping grounds in Oz and the UK.
She had previously also dated Aussie actor-singer Jason Donovan — and when I ask if she’s ever “gone full Bridget Jones”, liked the unlucky-in-love soul of movie fame, she swiftly replies: “Oh, 100 per cent.
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“I’ve had different relationships that all shaped me. Of course, I talk about Michael. I’ve also got Jason Donovan, who speaks so amazingly in the documentary.”
During the Netflix special, Kylie recalls how she struggled post-Hutchence — and tells viewers: “I didn’t know where to go or what to do. I knew I didn’t want to be in London and I didn’t want to be in Australia, so I went to Paris.
“I remember having a tiny English to-French dictionary. I didn’t know anyone, but had two numbers on a bit of paper. One of those was a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of mine.
“She lived with a girl called Kat, who is now my oldest, best girlfriend. I moved into her apartment, got a sleeping bag and slept on the sofa. I was feeling heartbroken.”
Keen not to sugarcoat her life for Netflix, Kylie let director Michael Harte retain total creative control, even when she may have liked some bits left on the cutting-room floor.
In one episode, her former Neighbours co-star Jason remembers the moment Kylie left him for rocker Michael — explaining how they met him after an INXS gig before Jason watched the pair disappear into a hotel bathroom together.
Jason admits: “He wasn’t interested in me. I could sniff that a mile away. And she disappeared with him into the bathroom, which is fine. You know, we’re grown-ups.”
Reflecting on that evening, Kylie adds: “After the gig, Jason and I were invited back to the after-party. I would have been a bit like, ‘How did we get here?’ We were just talking about singer stuff.”
Kylie has been single since splitting from GQ magazine boss Paul Solomons in 2023, and insists she does not need a man to feel complete.
When I ask if she is happy, All The Lovers singer Kylie replies with a smile: “I’m super-happy, yeah.”
She told the Sunday Times’ Style magazine yesterday: “I don’t have a boyfriend. I was in a relationship, and when that ended, I realised I was OK on my own. I’m getting pickier. Narcissists . . . I’ve dated one and I’m grateful I now have that knowledge. That’s my red-hot ‘no’.”
Similarly, when Kylie and I last chatted, in October 2024, the I Should Be So Lucky singer told me: “There’s no one significant in my life and I feel content. I feel like this is my destiny right now.”
But she STILL fiercely believes in love — and enjoys watching it bloom for others.
We first met in 2023 while she was promoting 16th album Tension. I was shamelessly chasing a boy and, on my way to her Claridge’s hotel suite, bought a bottle of Kylie Prosecco for her to sign for him.
After our chat, she agreed, writing his name on the bottle and wishing me luck in my romantic pursuit. The next summer, he was my boyfriend.
During a brief meeting in 2024, at the British Summer Time festival in London’s Hyde Park, I thanked her for the part she had played. “See, I’ve still got it!” she happily told her team, punching the air.
But by the time we crossed paths in May 2025, outside her dressing room as she played London’s 02 Arena for her Tension world tour, I was single once more.
I mentioned I was seeing her show again the next night and bringing my ex. “Ooh, what’s the goss?” Kylie asked. Laughing awkwardly, I admitted I wished we were still together.
Meanwhile, in episode two of her Netflix series Kylie wells up as she admits she has been searching for a love like she shared with Michael ever since their 1991 breakup.
Kylie says to camera: “I haven’t quite got it. I’ve probably been looking for something like that ever since.
“He was a first for so many things and one was heartbreak. I was devastated. He was a rock star, which doesn’t just mean that he needs many women in his life, but he needed to go where he needed to go. But I know from people in his circle that he talked of me and thought of me. We were good together.”
Shrugging off the emotion, Kylie adds: “Shoulda, woulda, coulda — whatever. But it was an amazing time. The memories make me feel good, even if I’m getting teary. It was good to have someone, to feel like you were a good team. I’m fortunate. The emotion and the memories I have with that time — I just felt protected, nurtured, valued, and believed in.”
Recalling Michael’s funeral in 1997 in Sydney, after he died at just 37, Kylie says: “At the church it was overwhelming, the outpouring of love for him. I felt him saying, ‘It’s OK. It will be OK’. I always feel he’s with me.”
But as we chat, Kylie wishes she had “stressed less” over the course of her career, and she admits she sometimes “didn’t manage it well”.
I am also relieved that — like me when love’s course goes awry — this global superstar so indentifies with Bridget Jones, as played in the films by Renee Zellweger.
In the series’ first film, Bridget Jones’s Diary, in 2001, the pyjama-clad protagonist has break-up blues as she clutches a bottle of wine and belts out power ballad All By Myself.
I doubt Kylie’s go-to heartbreak fixes are the same as my budget pairing — a £4.99 supermarket Pinot Grigio and Cadbury popping-candy chocolate bar. But I do recommend them, Kylie.
Of course, the other bombshell in Kylie’s life came at just 36 when, in 2005, she was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.
She had to pull out of a Glastonbury set and part of her Showgirl: The Greatest Hits Tour to undergo a lumpectomy as well as chemotherapy.
The next year she was in remission and given the all-clear.
But Kylie tells Netflix viewers: “I felt removed from my body. I was so scared of what was ahead of me.” Her singer sister Dannii adds: “We didn’t know, if she was ever going to be well again.”
It is hard to believe, though, how she has kept much of her off-stage life little known about.
When I put this to her, she nods and says: “It’s like, is there a monster under the bed? You build up this fear of telling.”
But she adds: “There’s enough behind me, and in front of me, that now has made it a good time. And what am I so scared of? It’s been a good exercise to have a look back at life, and find acceptance.”
In the docuseries, Kylie admits she was “riddled with self-doubt and anxiety” — and that those feelings still rear their head.
Kylie, who wrapped up her 66-date Tension tour last year, tells me: “I still have anxiety and self-doubt. No, not all the time, but a healthy amount is good.
“I know what I’m doing more now, which is satisfying. There’s definitely moments but that doesn’t permeate through.”
Although Kylie is now a superstar, she got there through steadfast resilience — proving critics wrong time and time again.
Her decision to quit Aussie soap Neighbours at the height of its success — when 24 million daily viewers was commonplace — was deemed by many as crazy.
Indeed, so popular was the soap that when Princess Diana missed just two episodes, she called up the BBC to ask after recordings.
Kylie’s sixth studio album, 1997’s Impossible Princess, was savaged so brutally by critics that radio stations refused to play her singles. A billboard even told the world Kylie was “over”.
Yet nearly three decades later, the 5ft powerhouse has never been more beloved. In December, she landed her eighth UK No1 single, ,and her first festive chart-topper, with Xmas.
A seasoned pro with interviews, Kylie usually has a slick answer ready for any question. But when I ask what she would say to her younger self, she takes her time before replying: “I still don’t know what’s ahead of me now — but I especially didn’t at 16.”
During the Netflix series, Kylie hits back at a suggestion she might be ready to slow down soon.
“Tell that to Cher and Barbra [Streisand]” she quips.
Both are plenty older than her — Cher recently turned 79 and Barbra 84 — and Cher, in particular, is still dusting off her suspenders and stockings for performances.
So, can we expect to see Kylie still doing The Locco-Motion at 80?
Beaming, she replies: “With all my heart, I hope so, yes.
“But how I’ve done this is, I am not a planner, I like to be fluid. I have a loose idea, I know what I want to do — but, yeah, maybe next week or this month.”
But while Kylie may still be up on stage in 2049, her famed gold hotpants will not. They are in a museum in Melbourne, Australia — but Kylie beams at my idea they belong in the Louvre museum in Paris, with the Mona Lisa painting.
Kylie says of the hotpants: “That would be amazing. But I bought them for 50p — my girlfriend found them in a secondhand store. I wore them quite rigorously so they’re fragile and the museum have said they have got to stay flat. They are in preservation mode.”
I also ask if “Kylie the pop star” ever feels like “Kylie the person” is forgotten.
But she feels fans want her to be both, adding of time on stage: “It’s a place for me to harness everything I’ve worked for and that I feel, and be expressive.”
The word “icon” is overused, but when I tell Kylie she is one, she replies simply: “I try.”
