Kylie Minogue looks back on four decades of music
Australian pop icon Kylie Minogue says a new documentary about her generation-spanning career is finally due.
"I've actively avoided doing exactly this type of thing," Minogue, 58, told ABC News' Lama Hasan in an interview that aired Tuesday on "Nightline." "I've been asked many times to do my documentary. How do you tell the story? Have I got enough of a story to tell? Why me? But it's just kind of going, 'OK, I'm saying yes.'"
Minogue's new Netflix docuseries is simply titled "Kylie" and was directed by filmmaker Michael Harte, whose previous subjects have included David Beckham and Michael J. Fox. It traces Minogue's four decades onstage, her two cancer diagnoses and a career that has refused to slow down.
The three-part series shows how early critics dismissed Minogue as "The Singing Budgie," a nickname that followed her through her early records and tours.
"Keep going," Minogue said, when asked how she got past the criticism. "I'm kind of mystified myself as to how, but I'm open-minded to all sorts. I don't like to be boxed in. When I was being really hammered, I would just be like, 'I might not be the things you're expecting me to be.' I kept chipping away at it. There's a determination."
Minogue, who got her start as a Australian soap actress in the 1980s, has since delivered 19 headlining tours and a Las Vegas residency, won two Grammys, and built a catalogue that has crossed continents and demographics.
In 2020, Minogue became the first female artist to top the U.K. charts across five consecutive decades.
In 2002, Minogue released "Fever," the album that broke her into the American market and produced the hit single "Can't Get You Out of My Head." Her performance of the song at that year's Brit Awards, where she rose out of a giant CD player, has become one of the most-replayed pop moments of the decade.
"I think I just learned the routine the day before," she recounted, speaking with Hasan . "It was a shiny moment. It was a shining album. Everything was working. Who knew I would come out of a giant CD player onto the Brits stage?"
By then, an LGBTQ+ fanbase had formed around Minogue that has stayed close to her ever since.
"The gay community were really onboard early, as were grandparents and parents and kids and aunties and girls," Minogue said of her fanbase. "My demographic is so inclusive, before that was a thing. And it stayed like that. So it's truthful, it's genuine."
In 2005, at age 36, mid-tour and at the height of her career, Minogue was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.
"I never thought, 'Why me?'" she said. "It was a shock. I don't know how I would have handled it differently if I wasn't due on stage in three days. It's always hard to talk about, because there's no neat way of saying it. If anyone's been through it, or we all know someone who's been through a type of cancer or a health issue, that affects everything."
What carried her, she said, was her family.
"I'm eternally grateful I have such a good family," Minogue said. "Especially when I wasn't well, everyone just gathered around. We had a strong support system."
Cancer cost her, among other things, her 2005 Glastonbury headlining slot. She eventually returned to the festival in 2019, in what became one of the most-watched sets in Glastonbury history.
Minogue's new docuseries discloses a second cancer diagnosis in 2021 that Minogue had previously kept entirely to herself. Today, she said she is cancer-free and in remission.
Pressed on why anyone is still so interested in her life four decades in, she rerouted.
"It isn't solely for me, it's equally me and other people," Minogue said. "I love hearing that the audience has some ownership, in the healthiest way, of this story. Because we've done it together. We've ridden the highs and the lows."
As for new music, the Grammy-winner teased, "There is more music. There's plenty to come. I feel like there always is. I'll be celebrating 40 years."
"Kylie" is streaming now on Netflix.
