{"id":458753,"date":"2026-05-20T18:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T18:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/458753\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T18:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T18:00:11","slug":"kylie-minogues-netflix-documentary-why-ireland-was-one-of-the-most-controversial-moments-of-her-career-and-11-other-things-i-learned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/458753\/","title":{"rendered":"Kylie Minogue\u2019s Netflix documentary: Why Ireland was one of the most controversial moments of her career and 11 other things I learned"},"content":{"rendered":"

We just can\u2019t get Kylie Minogue<\/a> out of our heads. The original princess of pop went from topping the charts in her teens to duetting with Nick Cave<\/a> in front of scruffy hordes of 1990s indie kids at the F\u00e9ile festival in P\u00e1irc U\u00ed Chaoimh<\/a> in Cork<\/a> \u2013 and has since gone on to release some of the greatest pop bangers of the 21st century.<\/p>\n

She revisits her lifetime in the spotlight in a new three-part Netflix<\/a> documentary out on Wednesday. There are also interviews with her Neighbours costar Jason Donovan and with Cave, who invited Kylie to sing on his Murder Ballads album over the objections of his management team. But does Netflix\u2019s Kylie<\/a> tell us anything new about the soapstar-turned-singer? Here are 10 takeaways from the documentary series.<\/p>\n

1. Ireland was the scene of one of the most controversial moments in her early career\"KylieKylie Minogue in the Westbury Hotel, Dublin, in 1990. Photograph: Independent News and Media\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

As the 1990s came around, Kylie was fed up with her \u201cgirl next door\u201d image and decided to \u201craunch\u201d things up by hiring designer John Galliano<\/a> to create the outfits for her Let\u2019s Get to It tour \u2013 including one \u201cinspired by Lolita\u201d. Kicking off in Plymouth in October 1991, the performance was enthusiastically ripped to shreds by the British tabloids: \u201cMary Poppins has turned into a hooker\u201d was typical of the misogyny from the London press. However, it was the final date at The Point in Dublin on November 8th that features most prominently in the new documentary \u2013 largely because Kylie had brought the cameras along to make a live DVD.<\/p>\n

She tells Netflix that the costumes and suggestive dancing were a mistake. \u201cWe went a bit too far. I\u2019m not going to lie.\u201d The camera then cuts to an image of the singer in see-through leggings \u2013 the sort of thing that Madonna might have sported in her prime. \u201cMaybe it was good in real life,\u201d says a cringing Kylie. \u201cIt didn\u2019t look good in freeze frame. I\u2019m going to defend it with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Michael Hutchence broke Kylie\u2019s heart\"MichaelMichael Hutchence with Kylie Minogue <\/p>\n

The squeaky-clean Neighbours star and the bad boy INXS frontman were a couple for two years \u2013 but Minogue is open about never quite getting over Hutchence and never experiencing the same fulfilment in a relationship. She blamed the end of the romance on his globe-trotting lifestyle as a rock star \u2013 saying the distance between them made things impossible. \u201cWe were good together. Shoulda, woulda, coulda, whatever. You go on and live your lives. But it was definitely an amazing point in time,\u201d she says, blinking away tears as she recalls his death in November 1997. \u201cI\u2019ve probably been looking for something like that ever since, and I haven\u2019t got it.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Kylie probably broke Jason Donovan\u2019s heart\"KylieKylie Minogue and Jason Donovan. Photograph: PA Wire <\/p>\n

Her Neighbours costar and one-time boyfriend is emotional throughout his appearance in episode one of the Kylie documentary, and at one point says he is going to walk out and immediately seek therapy. He adds that he is joking \u2013 but he clearly has never overcome the pain of having Kylie ditch him for Hutchence. He recalls accompanying Kylie backstage after an INXS concert. Did he get on with Hutchence? \u201cHe wasn\u2019t interested in me,\u201d says Donovan. \u201cI could tell he was focused on her. I could sniff that one a mile away.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. The British media hated her<\/p>\n

Perhaps because she was an Australian daring to conquer the UK charts, the press in Britain had it out for Kylie from the start. She was mocked as \u201cthe singing budgie\u201d and cruelly parodied by a Spitting Image puppet. There was snobbery too. We see public intellectual and future Through the Keyhole co-presenter Loyd Grossman dismiss her by saying: \u201cEveryone will be famous for 15 minutes, and 15 minutes can be a long time, especially when you spend it in the company of that Melbourne nightingale Kylie Minogue.\u201d She tried to shrug it off, but the vitriol understandably got to her. \u201cTo be 19 years old and having to cop that?\u201d she says, \u201cThat was unpleasant.\u201d<\/p>\n

5. She recorded her breakthrough hit while panicking about missing her flight back to Australia\"JasonJason Donavan and Kylie Minogue in Neighbours <\/p>\n

Kylie had flown to London to work with pop producers Stock Aitken Waterman. They squeezed in a frantic two-hour session the day Kylie was due to go back to Melbourne to resume her day job playing Charlene in Neighbours. With the clock ticking, she said she needed to catch a cab to make her flight. \u201cYou should be so lucky\u201d, said someone in the studio \u2013 and suddenly they had a name for their song.<\/p>\n

6. Nick Cave was terrified when he went on Top of the Pops with Kylie<\/p>\n

Cave had a decades-long history of drug abuse and general bad behaviour, but he had never encountered anything like Minogue\u2019s manic fan base when he went on Top of the Pops with her to perform their duet, Where the Wild Roses Grow, in 1995. \u201cThey were terrifying. Just these sort of monstrous, awful teenage girls. They did not like me and they did not like me to go near their princess,\u201d he shudders, describing them as \u201cevil people\u201d.<\/p>\n

7. But it was Cave who convinced her to return to her pop roots<\/p>\n

Desperate to be taken seriously, Kylie broke with Stock Aitken Waterman\u2019s label, PWL, and signed with indie label Deconstruction. But nobody wanted an \u201calternative\u201d Kylie, and her popularity nosedived. It was Cave, of all people, who convinced her to go back to pop \u2013 a change of direction that would ultimately lead to hits such as Spinning Around and Can\u2019t Get You Out of My Head. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018What the f**k are you doing?\u2019 Indie? No one willingly wants to be indie,\u201d recalls Cave. \u201cBut that\u2019s not what Kylie is. Kylie is this force that is there to affect thousands and thousands and thousands of people. It\u2019s all outward. It\u2019s all giving. You have an enormous positive influence\u2026 the great beauty of pop music is that it is a joy machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

8. She lacked confidence in her singing<\/p>\n

Kylie was initially dismissed as a soap star who had gone above her station, and the criticisms stung and sapped her confidence. \u201cI was insecure I was uncertain,\u201d she remembers of her I Should Be So Lucky era. \u201cThere\u2019s so many voices in my head… you can\u2019t do it… you just can\u2019t do it. It sets you back. Maybe I\u2019m not capable. Maybe they\u2019re right.\u201d<\/p>\n

9. Stock Aiken Waterman had no idea how popular she was<\/p>\n

Pete Waterman might have been the hit whisperer who crafted smashes for Rick Astley and others, but he had no idea that Neighbours had made Kylie a superstar before she had even walked through the doors of PWL. He was quickly set straight \u2013 when audiences rushed to the phone lines to demand he play I Should Be So Lucky in full on his radio show. \u201cThe cream wasn\u2019t us,\u201d he says, \u201cThe ice cream was Neighbours and we put the cherry on top.\u201d <\/p>\n

10. The first funeral she attended was that of Michael Hutchence\"KylieKylie Minogue at the funeral of INXS singer Michael Hutchence. Photograph: The Sydney Morning Herald <\/p>\n

She reveals that she went through \u201cmany firsts\u201d with the INXS singer \u2013 first true love, first heartache. After his suicide in 1997, there came a more unwelcome new experience. She had never attended a funeral prior to stepping before the eyes of the world, a black veil over her face, to sit in silence as the love of her life was laid to rest. <\/p>\n

11. Her cancer returned in 2021<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a bombshell in episode three as Kylie reveals she had a second cancer diagnosis \u2013 16 years after she had to cancel her world tour to undergo treatment for breast cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew that cancer wasn\u2019t just a blip in my life and I really just wanted to say what happened so I can let go of it,\u201d she says. \u201cI got through it and all is well.\u201d<\/p>\n

12. She had IVF in 2005<\/p>\n

Before receiving chemotherapy, Kylie, who was in a relationship with actor Olivier Martinez underwent IVF. \u201cI was 36 when I got my diagnosis, so already you need to be thinking about children. So I did try. I even postponed my chemotherapy to try, which was quite scary at the time because you just want it out, gone \u2013 I want to feel safe, I don\u2019t want this,\u201d she tells Netflix.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut yeah, I did try a few times with IVF, always with such a thread of hope. But I couldn\u2019t not try. If it had happened, it would have been just shy of a miracle. But it didn\u2019t work out that way. It just wasn\u2019t my path.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We just can\u2019t get Kylie Minogue out of our heads. The original princess of pop went from topping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[986,61,60,32038,1868,43,92584],"class_list":["post-458753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-australia","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kylie-minogue","tag-netflix","tag-news","tag-nick-cave"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}