by Michael McCarthy
On May 20th, 2026, Netflix launched a new three-part docuseries about singer/actress Kylie Minogue, one of my favorite artists. I could try to pretend that I’m an unbiased journalist reviewing this, but I think my readers would see through that. I’ve previously disclosed that I’m a huge Kylie fan and I don’t think I’m capable of writing a review where that wouldn’t shine through. After all, I’m such a big Kylie fan that I have her Fever album era Kylie logo tattooed on my left wrist. I also traveled all the way to Paris, France to see her live on the Fever tour in 2002. Simply put, Kylie Minogue is one of my favorite people on this planet. No, I’ve never met her, yet she’s still very near and dear to my heart.
If you’re thinking, “Wait, wasn’t there already a Kylie documentary?” you would be correct. In 2007 she released a documentary film called White Diamond. Among other things, the documentary focused on her triumphant battle with breast cancer, which she was diagnosed with in 2005. That story also features prominently in the new Netflix documentary, but the Netflix documentary also discloses that she had cancer again in 2021, a bombshell that none of her fans were prepared for. She’s obviously still here with us in 2026 and did the highly successful Tension tour recently so we can assume that she once again triumphed over cancer but this was apparently the first time that she publicly disclosed that she had cancer again in 2021. Honestly, this revelation hit me like a ton of bricks. That’s partially for a very personal reason – I recently lost one of my favorite people in the world to cancer and I hadn’t even known that they had cancer until a few days before they died. But this docuseries cancer revelation also feels a bit like a slap in the face because it comes at the very end of the final episode. The episode looks like it’s about to end and roll the credits when the screen suddenly reads “ONE MORE THING” then they announce that she had cancer again in 2021. The documentary frames the revelation as something she intentionally withheld because she “didn’t feel obliged to tell the world” and emotionally “was just a shell of a person” at the time. And I can appreciate that. I’m definitely not angry with Kylie for not revealing that she had cancer again previously. And it makes me sad that she had to go through that again. But the way they just tack that on at the end of the new docuseries kind of stings. It left me feeling like I was punched in the gut and had the wind knocked out of me. But I suppose that could be partially for the personal reason I mentioned above. I felt like, damn, someone else I love had cancer and didn’t tell me. Still, I’ve seen a lost of posts in Kylie groups on Facebook from other people who were shocked by the docuseries cancer revelation, too, so I know I’m not the only person who was stunned by this.
The KYLIE docuseries on Netflix starts at the beginning, starting off with coverage about recording Kylie’s first single and her starring role on the Australian soap opera Neighbours. The coverage of these things is excellent but one of the shortcomings of this docuseries is that they never mention another one of Kylie’s acting jobs in the entire three hour docuseries. She received much critical acclaim for her role in The Delinquents and also had a leading role in the hit movie Street Fighter, based on the videogame of the same name, among other acting projects. She even starred as a fictionalized version of herself in the recent Netflix series The Residence. Is it not a bit weird that she recently starred in a Netflix series yet the Netflix docuseries doesn’t even mention that? If you just watch this Kylie docuseries, you would totally think that Neighbors was her only acting gig in her entire life. There is literally not one utterance about any of her other acting roles, of which there have been at least a dozen.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I know that Kylie is much more famous for her music than her acting. And while she is one of my favorite music artists of all-time, I would be lying if I said she was my favorite actress. Still, her performance have always been decent if not great and I feel like some of these other roles should have been mentioned in this series.
One other thing that bugs me slightly: this KYLIE docuseries is three episodes, approximately one hour each. But Netflix has does docuseries on other musicians that were four episodes, like the one on Robbie Williams, for example. Not only did the KYLIE series fail to mention most of her acting gigs, it did not mention many of her music releases either. Wonderful albums like Body Language and X didn’t even get a single mention. I believe they used the X song “Wow” briefly, but they didn’t mention what album it was on.
Speaking of Robbie Williams, at one point they show Kylie and Robbie in the studio recording their hit duet “Kids,” but they don’t even mention Robbie Williams by name. The footage is grainy and poor and if you didn’t know it was Robbie Williams, you wouldn’t know it’s him because they don’t say so and his face isn’t recognizable in the footage. Also, they show Kylie recording “Your Disco Needs You,” another Light Years song that Robbie Williams co-wrote for her, but again they failed to mention Robbie by name. Considering that Kylie’s album before Light Years, entitled Impossible Princess, was largely considered a commercial failure, with Light Years always praised for being her big comeback album, you would think they would credit Robbie Williams for helping with her comeback but they never mention him by name. Yet Nick Cave, who recorded one duet with Kylie – “Where the Wild Roses Grow” – was interviewed and is shown several times in this new docuseries. Maybe Robbie Williams was asked to do an interview for the this Kylie docuseries and he declined so that’s why they didn’t mention him by name? That’s my only guess.
All in all, Netflix’s KYLIE docuseries does give you a lot of insight about Kylie’s life and career, but longtime fans can’t help but come away from it thinking about all of the things that were missing. I really enjoyed this series and I’m quite grateful to Kylie and Netflix for making it. But if they had just made one additional episode, they could have easily mentioned her other acting gigs and more of her albums. Also, when they cover Impossible Princess and essentially declare that it was a flop, they don’t mention that it’s actually one of the albums that Kylie is the most proud of and which many fans consider a favorite. In fact, if you asked me what my favorite Kylie album was, most of the time I would say Impossible Princess. It truly is a brilliant album. People always refer to that and the previous Deconstruction album, which was self-titled, as “indie Kylie” and I guess you could say that Impossible Princess does kind of fit that moniker, but at the same time it wasn’t like she was going against the grain. Two of the songs were co-written and performed with the band Manic Street Preachers, which were one of the biggest bands in the UK at the time, while other songs like “Too Far” and “Jump” brilliantly utilized the latest recording technology at the time with intricate layers of electronic beats and loops. You can call it “indie Kylie” if you must, but it was actually Kylie dabbling in the genres of music that were actually popular at the time so it’s not like she was self-sabotaging or deliberately making an album that would be a commercial failure. On the contrary, you could argue that she was making the types of music that she thought would actually be successful at the time.
I could go on and on about the various things that I wish they would have included in this docuseries, but it is what it is and I’m not going to change that so I suppose I would be wasting my breath. But I wanted to mention some of these things because I know that other die-hard, longtime fans like me are having similar thoughts in reaction to this new series.
Finally, I should mention that Kylie has released a new single to coincide with the new docuseries. The song is called “Light Up” and, to put it simply, it’s beautiful. Both in terms of how it sounds and in terms of the lyrics. I would like to post the full lyrics to the song here but I don’t want to get in trouble for violating copyright laws or anything so I’ll just share the first verse:
“If a light were to shine every tear that I cried
A million stars would be shining tonight
If a bell were to ring every if, every why
The symphony sound would be higher than high
I’ve been alone, been alone in the rain
Wondering how anything’s gonna change
But when you tell me you see the world in my eyes
Then I come alive, then I come alive”
Indeed, it’s a gorgeous song and the lyrics are both insightful and perfectly suited for the docuseries. The single is available for purchase digitally right now on Amazon, the iTunes store, etc. It’s also available for streaming on Spotify and the like.
One last thought. Most of the time, Netflix does not release their content on DVD or other physical formats. I hope they will make an exception with this Kylie docuseries at some point. I know I am not the only fan who will be sour if we never get to physically own it and add it to our collections.
Read the full “Light Up” lyrics on Genius: https://genius.com/Kylie-minogue-light-up-lyrics
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