Kylie Minogue, a girl from Melbourne, was performing to global audiences and inspiring headlines when she was diagnosed with cancer for the first time.
In 2005, the pop princess was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer at just 36-years-old. But it was a revelation that almost never came.
Upon her first visit to the doctors, before Kylie kicked off her Showgirl tour, she was misdiagnosed. Amid the throws of a huge tour, Kylie got a second opinion and was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.
“I actually did my Showgirl tour having been for a check and told everything was fine,” she confessed on Ellen DeGeneres talkshow in 2008.
“So my message to all of you and everyone at home is, because someone is in a white coat and using big medical instruments doesn’t necessarily mean they are right.”
Despite Kylie’s life in the spotlight, attracting fans with her pop music or her acting skills that people adored since Neighbours, she rarely discussed the terrifying health journey.
That changed when the 57-year-old released a three-part Netflix documentary. Sharing intimate details of her cancer journey through unseen footage and new interviews.
Reflecting on the moment her diagnosis was confirmed, Kylie shared: “I felt removed from my body. I was so scared of what was ahead of me.”
Playing a prominent role in the documentary is her sister Dannii Minogue, fellow actress and singer.
“We didn’t know if she was ever going to be well again. I just wanted to be with my sister. Music kept us going,” Dannii admitted.
She was with her brother, Brendan Minogue and boyfriend at-the-time, Oliver Martinez when she received the news. All in a daze, they simply went to a cafe.
“[It was] like the earth had kind of slipped off its axis. You see everything differently,” she confessed to People in 2020.
The singer then underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy in Europe. In 2006, she was given the all-clear. However, she initially postponed her chemotherapy to undergo IVF treatment which was “scary at the time,” but “I couldn’t not try.”
“I did try IVF a number of times,” she said in her documentary. “If it had happened it would have been just shy of a miracle but it didn’t work out that way.”
“One can’t help but wonder what it would have been like… I am so close to my family… it wasn’t my path.”
This painful experience inspired the song Flower, which was written in 2007 but released in 2012. Now, she describes the song as “a letter to what might have been.”
What fans didn’t expect to discover during the documentary was that Kylie went through a second bout of cancer in 2021. In the third episode of KYLIE, the popstar revealed the diagnosis came during a routine check-up.
“I’ve been trying to find the right time to say it,” she said, adding that she’d try speaking up during interviews but never found her voice.
“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.I didn’t want to leave the house again at one point.”
“I really just wanted to say what happened so I can let go of it.”
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