In her new Netflix documentary series, Kylie Minogue reveals she was diagnosed with cancer for a second time in 2021.
The Aussie pop icon was first diagnosed with the breast cancer in 2005, forcing her to cancel a run of live dates, including her planned Glastonbury headline performance.
Now, in the three-part self-titled series the ‘Come Into My World’ hitmaker opens up about her previously-undisclosed second diagnosis and how she managed to keep it under wraps, unlike the first time around.
“My second cancer diagnosis was in early 2021. I was able to keep that to myself… Not like the first time,” she explains.
“Thankfully, I got through it. Again. And all is well. Hey, who knows what’s around the corner, but pop music nurtures me… my passion for music is greater than ever.”
Following treatment, the ‘2 Hearts’ singer explains she struggled “to find the right time” to announce the news publicly, amid the success of her Grammy-winning 2023 single ‘Padam Padam’ and ‘Tension’ era.
“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,” she says. “I didn’t want to leave the house again at one point. ‘Padam Padam’ opened so many doors for me but on the inside I knew that cancer wasn’t just a blip in my life.
“And I really just wanted to say what happened so I can let go of it. I’d sit through interviews and every opportunity I thought, ‘now’s the time’, but I kept it to myself.”
Noting how her 2023 song ‘Story’ details the private health battle, with lyrics including ‘I didn’t walk on the wild side or fall in the night sky / I didn’t let the world know / I was fightin’ a big fight, fightin’ a dark light / Ragin’ hard on the inside’, she adds: “I needed to have something that marked that time.”
