Kylie Minogue: How the ‘singing budgie’ because Australia’s top-selling artist
From loveable soapie tomboy to global megastar and cancer crusader, Kylie Minogue is officially recognised as the highest-selling Australian artist of all time.
She is musical royalty and we are so lucky, lucky, lucky to call her our own.
After emerging as a soap star before making her mark around the world with a series of smash hit songs — and beating cancer along the way — Kylie Minogue has always been held in the highest affection.
Born and raised in Melbourne, Kylie — recognised the world over by just her first name — rose to fame as loveable tomboy Charlene Robinson on Neighbours in the late-1980s, and it was this role that started her on the road to mega-stardom.
The show was hugely popular in the UK, and her character’s wedding to Scott Robinson (played by then real-life boyfriend Jason Donovan) attracted some 20 million viewers in 1987.
She became the first person to secure four Logie Awards in the same year and was the youngest winner of the prestigious Gold Logie in 1988.
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Her pop career began in 1987 when she released The Locomotion, which spent four weeks at the top of the Australian charts and became the year’s highest-selling single.
Shortly afterwards Kylie moved to the UK to work with the pop factory of Stock, Aitken and Waterman, and she has mainly been based in London ever since.
Her career has gone from strength to strength since then, and the ageless 50-year-old has now recorded 13 studio albums, selling more than 80 million copies globally.
Kylie is officially recognised as the highest-selling Australian artist of all time by the Australian Recording Industry Association. She has won almost every music accolade going, including ARIA Awards, a Grammy, Brit Awards, and in 2008 she even received an OBE from the Prince of Wales for her services to music.
The princess of pop’s personal life has not always gone as smoothly as her career, but she has always handled herself with grace and determination.
Her breast cancer diagnosis while she was on tour in Australia in 2005 shocked everyone. But doctors praised Kylie for her brave and very public battle, in which she highlighted the effects of chemotherapy in an effort to encourage other women to undergo regular check-ups. She had such power medics dubbed it the “Kylie effect”.
Regarded as a gay icon, Kylie campaigned hard for the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Australia.
But it is her private life that has often grabbed attention, and one of the world’s most beautiful women is known for being unlucky in love.
INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, model James Gooding and French actor Olivier Martinez have all come and gone, but now she appears to have found happiness with new beau, British GQ creative director Paul Solomons.
From soap star to singer, sex symbol and trendsetter, she’s one of the few artists who have managed to constantly reinvent herself while keeping her status as Australia’s golden girl.
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