In her new Netflix documentary series, Kylie Minogue shares a poignant moment where she opens up, with tears in her eyes, about her most significant love, the heartache it brought, and her ongoing quest to find something just as profound.
This great love wasn’t with Jason Donovan, her Neighbours co-star and first serious boyfriend, nor was it with French actor Olivier Martinez, who stood by her during her battle with breast cancer, or even with British actor Joshua Sasse, to whom she was once engaged.
The man who holds this special place in her heart is Michael Hutchence, the charismatic frontman of the band INXS, once hailed as ‘the sexiest man on earth.’
The entertainment world was taken by surprise when, in 1989, Kylie, known for her wholesome image, began a relationship with Hutchence.
At the time, Kylie was celebrated for her catchy, upbeat pop hits like “I Should Be So Lucky” and “The Locomotion,” whereas Hutchence was notorious for his wild lifestyle, womanizing ways, and electrifying performances on stage.
In the new three part series Kylie opens up about her life with the man she met when she was 21 years old and about whom she once said ‘sex, love, food, drugs, music, travel, books, you name it, he wanted to experience it… as his partner I got to experience a lot of that as well.’
In her new three part Netflix series Kylie Minogue opens up about her life with Michael Michael Hutchence, the frontman with INXS and once described as ‘the sexiest man on earth’
Together for just under three years she says: ‘I’ve probably been looking for something like that ever since and I haven’t got it.’
Hutchence broke up with Kylie in 1991 and died by suicide six years later, but more than three decades on says she still ‘always feel he’s with me,’ even though the pain of the breakup left her shattered.
‘He was the first in so many ways and one of those firsts was heartbreak. I was devastated,’ she says of her split from Hutchence in 1991.
‘He was a rock star, which doesn’t just mean that he needs to have many women in his life, but he needed to go where he needed to go.’
The relationship became ‘more and more difficult’ due to the prolonged time apart while INXS were on the road, which made it ‘really hard’ for them to see each other.
Reflecting on what could have been between them, she says: ‘We were good together. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, whatever. You know, you go on and live your lives. But it was definitely an amazing point in time.’
She is comforted knowing that Hutchence’s feelings for her were as strong as hers were for him, saying: ‘I know from people in his circle that he talked of me and thought of me.’
Visibly emotional while talking about her former love she says she is very aware that the ’emotion and the memories I have with him and with that time might seem disproportionate,’ adding she ‘just felt protected and nurtured and valued and believed in’ by Hutchence who wrote the hit Suicide Blonde about her and the night he accompanied her to the premiere of her movie The Delinquents, where she donned a peroxide pixie cut wig.
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Kylie wasn’t the only one to have her heart broken by Hutchence. When she first met the singer, feeling an instant chemistry, she was dating Neighbours co-star Jason Donovan
After their split, Hutchence began dating Danish supermodel Helena Christensen before moving onto TV presenter Paula Yates, with whom he had a daughter, Tiger Lily, now aged 29.
Kylie had a string of high-profile relationships herself including a reported fling with rock star Lenny Kravitz shortly after things ended with Hutchence.
Most recently, she was in a relationship with media executive Paul Solomons, which ended in 2023. She’s been single ever since and says she is happy spending time alone.
It was in November 1997 that Hutchence was found dead in a Sydney hotel room. Kylie recalls the moment she heard the news.
‘I got a phone call and, yeah, I don’t remember what words she said but it was like, “He’s gone.” I got the flight back to Sydney for the funeral and I just went, “Oh, this is another first, this is the first service that I’ve been to.”‘
She adds: ‘I remember being at the church and it was overwhelming, the outpouring of love for him. It’s going to sound totally crazy, but I felt him just saying, “It’s okay, it’ll be okay.”‘
Kylie wasn’t the only one to have her heart broken by Hutchence. When she first met the singer, feeling an instant chemistry and attraction, she was dating her Neighbours co-star Jason Donovan.
The pair met on the show as teenagers, beginning a real life relationship that emulated that of their popular characters Charlene and Scott.
However a boyfriend on the scene didn’t stop Hutchence making a beeline for Kylie backstage following a Sydney concert.
Donovan, 57, who launched his own pop career following Minogue’s success, had taken her to the INXS show, after which they were invited back to the band’s hotel for an afterparty.
‘Oh he wasn’t interested in me. I could tell he was focused on her, absolutely,’ he says of his girlfriend’s meeting with the rock star.
‘I could sniff that one a mile away and she disappeared with him into the bathroom I think, if I remember correctly. Which is fine, you know, grown-up.’
While it was clear her head had been turned by the magnetic Hutchence, Donovan had, until that point, imagined a future with her.
‘Did I think we were going to get married? The truth is, yeah. And have kids,’ he said. ‘That’s the script written, off you go. I thought it was my destination.’
For her part, Kylie admitted she was taken with Hutchence and that he made his move on her at that party, inviting her out to dinner.
The showbiz world was stunned when, in 1989, squeaky clean Kylie embarked on a relationship with Hutchence
‘After his gig Jason and I were invited back to his afterparty. I think we were in a very small car – two of us in this tiny little crappy white car to the hotel, so that’s when I met Michael,’ she said.
‘We were talking about singer stuff and he said he lived in Hong Kong and I was about to go to Hong Kong and Japan and do these live shows, I hadn’t really done live shows. So, I was nervous as hell.’
She says that Hutchence told her about some ‘magical drops’ to help with her vocal cords, but it was all under the ‘guise’ of asking her out to dinner.
They met up when she was in Hong Kong – a meeting for which he was late – and were both ‘mesmerised’ with each other.
Donovan said that he could ‘tell something wasn’t right’ and knew that his girlfriend had fallen for someone else.
‘I could tell, I could smell it. Love hurts, man,’ he says.
He adds: ‘Look I don’t have anything against Michael. I was a fan. He was everything, really, I probably wanted to be at that point which is really the irony.’
In the interview, Donovan admits that there had been problems in their relationship before Hutchence arrived on the scene, with jealousy creeping in when Kylie became hot property in the UK before he had launched his own pop career.
‘When all the criticism came her way about her voice she struggled, she really struggled,’ he said.
‘And I was like, ‘well, maybe you shouldn’t have gone down that route’, because that’s sort of how my attitude was.’
‘Also, you know, I had my own ego at that point, ‘Why isn’t this happening to me?’ Do you know what I mean?’ he admits.
While Kylie threw herself enthusiastically into her new romance, her management team weren’t so keen.
‘There was concern from my team, they thought, ‘Uh-oh, she’s too cute and good for him and he’s too bad and hot for her,’ she says, pointing out that she wasn’t as squeaky clean as everyone liked to believe.
‘How devilish was I? I was devilish enough.’
And clearly devilish enough to capture the attention of the sexiest man on earth and the one against whom all others are now measured.
