Kylie Minogue secretly battled cancer a second time: Singer, 57, reveals for the first time she kept devastating 2021 diagnosis to herself – as she details postponing first treatment in the hopes of having a child
In 2005, the world watched her bravely battle breast cancer at just 36 years old.
But now Kylie Minogue has revealed she was diagnosed with cancer for the second time just five years ago, leaving her with something of a ‘husk of a person’.
The 57-year-old Princess of Pop tearfully recalled keeping her 2021 diagnosis secret from the public during the latest career resurgence in the third episode of her candid Netflix documentary.
In the three-part series KYLIE, which airs on Wednesday, the singer revealed that she was in such bad shape during her illness that she “didn’t want to leave the house.”
She said she tried to find the ‘right time’ to tell her fans about her second primary breast cancer, which was diagnosed during a routine check-up, but she found it difficult to do so and ended up keeping it to herself for five years.
“My second cancer diagnosis was in 2021,” he said with his songwriting team in the closing minutes of the documentary.
He said he was able to “keep it to himself”, unlike “the first time” when every move he made was documented.
Kylie Minogue has revealed she was diagnosed with cancer for the second time just five years ago, leaving her with something of a ‘husk of a person’.
‘I’m trying to find the right time to say this,’ he said. ‘I don’t feel like I have to explain myself to the world, and in fact I couldn’t at the time because I was just a shell of a person.
‘At one point I didn’t want to leave the house again.’
His hit comeback single Padam Padam was released in 2023 and became the song of the summer, even winning a Grammy Award for Best Pop Dance Recording.
But behind the scenes, Ms. Minogue was still battling cancer, and although she was eager to tell the world, she never quite found the right opportunity.
‘Padam Padam opened many doors for me, but deep down I knew that cancer was not just a blip in my life,’ he said.
‘And I really wanted to tell you what happened so I could let it go.
‘I would sit through interviews and at every opportunity I would think, ‘Now is the time’, but I kept that to myself.’
The singer announced that the song Story, written for her sixteenth studio album Tension, is about her second battle with cancer.
Unbeknownst to fans, the song detailed his diagnosis with the lyrics: ‘I had a secret I kept to myself, yeah/I had a one-way ticket to nowhere.’
Ms Minogue said of her decision to talk about her second diagnosis in the documentary: ‘It was important but most importantly I didn’t feel obliged to do it.
The 57-year-old Princess of Pop tearfully recalled keeping her 2021 diagnosis secret from the public during the latest career resurgence in the third episode of her candid Netflix documentary.
‘I was grateful that it was my decision and choice to share. ‘Making this documentary meant looking back at many important moments in my life and this was another one.’
He said he hoped the decision to discuss this issue would help someone who ‘could benefit from a gentle reminder to do their checks’.
She added: ‘Early diagnosis was very helpful and I’m so grateful to be able to say I’m fine today.’
Ms Minogue said ‘thankfully I got through it again’ and now ‘everything is fine’.
The Australian pop star, who rose to fame in the 1980s with hit TV series Neighbours, was at the peak of her career and set to headline Glastonbury when she first fell ill in 2005.
She was forced to withdraw from the festival and cancel a number of London shows as she underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy in Paris with her family and then-boyfriend Olivier Martinez.
And now she has revealed that she is postponing her treatment to first undergo multiple rounds of in vitro fertilization in the hope of having children.
“I was 36 when I got the diagnoses, so that’s what it is; you have to think about the children,” he said in the documentary.
‘So I tried, I even postponed my chemo to try, which was quite scary at the time because you just want it to come out, you just want it to go away.’
The Australian pop star, who rose to fame in the 1980s with hit TV series Neighbours, was at the peak of her career and set to headline Glastonbury when she first fell ill in 2005.
She said she had tried ‘several times’ to get pregnant through in vitro fertilization, always with ‘great hope’ and believed she ‘didn’t try’.
‘If this had happened, it would have been nothing short of a miracle. But it didn’t work that way,’ he said.
In emotional scenes, Ms Minogue read the letter she had written to her future child as she went through the process.
It read: ‘My faraway child, my flower, are you blowing in the wind? Can you feel me giving you life?
‘My step into eternity, wrapped in the blanket of hope, sleeping in the bed of dreams, is not what it should be, not at all; Who knows which way the wind will blow?’
Speaking in the documentary, his sister Dannii Minogue, 54, said: ‘I never saw myself as a parent and she always did and it’s just heartbreaking.’
