My overriding feeling will just be of gratitude and how fragile life can be
14 YEARS AFTER CANCER FORCED HER TO PULL OUT OF HER HEADLINE GIG AT GLASTONBURY, KYLIE MINOGUE TELLS TO EXPECT TEARS ON STAGE TODAY
WHEN Kylie gazes out at a sea of 100,000 people in a Somerset field shortly before 4pm today, she can be forgiven for becoming a little emotional.
Fourteen years ago, the pop star was due to headline the same Pyramid stage until a breast cancer diagnosis left her devastated.
It also robbed her of the chance to carve a slice of Glastonbury history.
“I would have been one of the only female solo artists in the festival’s history to headline,” she says quietly.
“I really thought I missed my opportunity and as the years went by, I said to myself: ‘Well this just isn’t going to happen’.”
Even now, she remembers vividly being back home in Melbourne, Australia, with mum Carol and dad Ron and watching the 2005 festival on television.
Despite being in the grip of an eight month cycle of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the sheer injustice of having to cancel the show affected her deeply too.
“My memory’s so strong of so much around that time and while my focus had moved on from Glastonbury, I was watching from Australia and going, ‘I’m meant to be there’,” she says.
“It would have been pretty mega at the time to headline – the next woman to do it was Beyoncé.”
After being given the all-clear from cancer and as the years rolled by, Glastonbury always nagged away at the back of her mind.
So she was “floored” when the call finally arrived offering her the chance to follow in the footsteps of Bee Gee Barry Gibb and Dame Shirley Bassey by playing the famous Legends slot.
However, Kylie is under no illusion just how emotionally-charged the moment will be when she finally strides out onto that stage.
“I will remember what happened those years ago and I think my overriding feeling will just be of gratitude and, you know, just how fragile life can be,” she admits.
“Will there be tears? Absolutely. Let’s just say I will be wearing waterproof mascara.”
It’s little wonder that Kylie will reflect on what was, then aged just 36, a
tumultuous period in her life.
After the hammer-blow of the diagnosis – made worse after initially being misdiagnosed and told she was fine – she retreated into a “dark” place and barely left her parents’ home.
And while some artists can, and do, undergo treatment in private, a cancelled tour meant Kylie decided to make her condition public.
“I was meant to be on stage in two or three days so I needed an explanation, and it just didn’t cross my mind not to say it,” she says.
“I probably didn’t think about the
ramifications of that, but I am not a very good liar.” Suddenly her cancer admission went around the world.
The Australian prime minister, at the time, John Howard even released a statement such was the state of shock felt by her home nation, and the world.
But while buoyed by the international support, privately, Kylie was finding the going tough. The heavy-duty steroids made her feel unwell, and she was stung by the inevitable hair loss.
After finally being given the all-clear in January, 2006, following a partial mastectomy, she was then forced to take medication for five years.
“The lows, you hate them at the time but it is character building,” she says. “I kind of hate saying that, but it’s true, you know.”
One of the positive side-effects of Kylie going public was the huge surge in women having mammograms. Dubbed the “Kylie effect”, screenings increased by a third.
“I mean I have people come to me and tell me to my face, ‘Well I went to get checked and I’m now five years cancer free,” she says.
“Everyone’s story is different, but it’s a good feeling to know that you’ve raised awareness and helped some people.”
Sitting in front of Kylie in a bar at Claridges Hotel, she is everything you’d expect and more.
Warm, charming and incredibly self-deprecating, she looks resplendent in minimal make-up and much younger than 51. It’s easy to see why dashing GQ creative director Paul Solomons fell for her.
The pair began dating over a year ago and he met her family including brother Brendon and pop star sister Dannii, for the first time, last Christmas.
Suddenly there was a smile on her face again after the heartache of splitting up with fiancé Joshua Sasse amid rumours he was unfaithful.
Kylie’s luminous blue eyes light up at the mention of Paul’s name.
And she lets out an uproarious laugh upon mention of the soppy Instagram pictures the pair like to post – including one of Kylie dressed as an elf gazing into Paul’s eyes.
“Who says you can’t be soppy and romantic later in life? Particularly when you find a good and true love,” she says. “It doesn’t matter how young or old you are. I feel even more thankful and lucky that I have this in my life now…. I’m really being taken care of.”
Not that Kylie needs taking care of. Ever since she burst onto our screens as feisty tomboy Charlene in Neighbours in the late 1980s, she has worked non-stop – amassing an estimated £50million fortune in the process.
She has sold a staggering 80million records worldwide.
Her last studio album – Golden – went straight to number one, she has a greatest hits album out and is currently on a UK tour, taking in dates including Manchester, Cornwall and Brighton.
To survive – and thrive – over three decades is almost unheard of in such a notoriously tough business. To do so, suggests an inner steel underneath her cheery persona. Just ask her team on tour.
“I like to be the boss….if anyone does anything stupid, they get the look,” she laughs, although I suspect she’s deadly serious.
She is not unlike her idol Dolly Parton in this respect, who five years ago also took to Glastonbury to perform the Legends slot.
Kylie reveals the two of them met up earlier this year while Dolly was in the UK, the pair of them discussing the small matter of the Aussie’s date at Worthy Farm.
It was their second encounter. The first, four years ago, saw Kylie left so star-struck, she could barely utter a word.
It reminded her of her own meet and greets when sometimes her fans are rendered speechless.
“Some people react like that to me. I never understood it, but now I’m like, ‘Oh, okay. That’s why they can’t put two words together’.”
Second time round, however, Kylie was sufficiently composed to strike up a conversation.
“Dolly said, ‘Oh you’re going to love Glastonbury. You know I did a new song for that called Mud because I thought there was going to be mud.’ I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation. She told me to go out there and enjoy it.”
There’s no doubt of that. Promising a sing-along of her greatest hits (“We’re not going to muck about”) there are rumours, too, of some big name duets, which she wants to be a surprise.
“Yes, it’s going to be emotional, but to keep myself on track, I try to remind myself... it’s a celebration. I’m not trying to do anything new. Me, the crowd and 31 or 32 years of history together.
“Although I will probably feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience, having said that, I will try to be as present as I can.”
Her mind, inevitably, drifts back again to 2005 and the Glastonbury that never was.
“Perhaps I wasn’t ready then anyway,” she says. “I feel like I’ve grown so much and got a lot more to offer now.”
Something her fans today – and millions more watching at home – will doubtless agree.
New album Step Back in Time is out now. Kylie’s tour travels to Cornwall, Manchester, Lytham St Annes, Edinburgh, Scarborough, and Brighton Pride. For tickets, go to kylie.com