In the new three-part documentary Kylie that debuts today (May 20) on Netflix, Australian superstar singer Kylie Minogue reveals that a routine checkup in 2021 led to a second cancer diagnosis after the singer received treatment for breast cancer in 2005.
“My second cancer diagnosis was in early 2021. I was able to keep that to myself,” Minogue, 57 says in the film, according to the BBC. “Not like the first time. “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.”
Minogue says she struggled to “find the right time” to talk about her second diagnosis, which came before the global success of her Grammy-winning 2023 dance pop smash “Padam Padam.” “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 said. “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.”
While she didn’t discuss her second diagnosis with reporters or fans, Minogue did hide some Easter eggs in the lyrics of her 2023 Tension album. The song “Story” features the lines, “I had a secret that I kept to myself/ Turn another page, baby take the stage.” She explains that she “needed to have something that marked that time.”
Though she kept mum about the 2021 diagnosis, Minogue said she’s sharing the details now in the hopes that “someone out there who will benefit from a gentle reminder to do their checkups.”
After her first diagnosis in 2005, Minogue had to cancel the rest of her Showgirl hits tour and pull out of a headlining legends slot set at the Glastonbury festival in order to get a lumpectomy and chemotherapy. In a trailer for the doc, Minogue says “I felt removed from my body … I was so scared of what was ahead of me,” amid flashing headlines about her first cancer diagnosis.
Minogue was declared cancer-free in February 2006 and was praised for helping to raise awareness about the disease that the WHO reported resulted in more than 2.3 million women being diagnosed in 2022, leading to 670,000 deaths globally. The uptick in women getting screenings in the wake of Minogue coming forward, especially in Australia, was referred to as the “Kylie effect.”
