Kylie Minogue reveals she was diagnosed with cancer again in 2021: ‘Don’t feel obliged to tell the world’

Kylie Minogue opened up about the previously undisclosed diagnosis in her new self-titled Netflix documentary, which premiered on Tuesday.

Pop icon and actor Kylie Minogue has shared that she has been quietly battling cancer since 2021 after being diagnosed with the disease for a second time, nearly two decades after overcoming her first cancer scare.

Kylie Minogue was 36 years old when she received her first breast cancer diagnosis. (AFP)

Kylie Minogue’s private cancer battle

The 57-year-old pop sensation opened up about the previously undisclosed diagnosis in her new self-titled Netflix documentary, which premiered on Tuesday.

“My second cancer diagnosis was in early 2021. I was able to keep that to myself … 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,” Kylie said, referring to her highly publicised first treatment.

She added that after her treatment, she struggled “to find the right time” to announce it publicly, including after the huge success of her Grammy-winning 2023 single Padam Padam.

Kylie shared, “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. 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.”

She confessed that her 2023 song Story, from her album Tension, refers to that period of her life. The lyrics of the song are: I had a secret that I kept to myself … Turn another page, baby take the stage.

More about Kylie Minogue

Kylie was 36 years old when she received her first breast cancer diagnosis. In response, she cancelled the remaining dates on her Showgirl greatest hits tour and pulled out of her headlining gig at Glastonbury festival that year to start her cancer treatments in Melbourne. She was declared cancer-free in 2006.

In 2008, she said that she had originally been misdiagnosed, mentioning, "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’re right … I am in the very best of hands now, but it is a fact that my initial diagnosis was that I was alright, and had nothing to worry about.”

She returned to music with the 2007 album X, which produced three UK Top 10 singles: 2 Hearts, Wow and In My Arms.