THEY were the Aussie pop sisters who were constantly being compared to each other as they both racked up a string of hits.
But Dannii Minogue reckons she would be dead if she wasn’t so mentally strong after years of being unkindly pitted against her super-slim elder sibling Kylie.
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When thin was in during the 1990s and 2000s, pint-sized Kylie was winning just as many plaudits for her lithe figure as she was for her songs.
Dannii, who had a curvier body than her sis, reveals: “I’ve said this to my friends: ‘I know that, if I wasn’t mentally strong and I did have any kind of eating disorder or something, I wouldn’t be alive now.’ That is fact.
“It was so brutal, and it went on for years.
“I was compared to my sister, who’s always had a completely different body shape our entire lives.
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“I wasn’t living up to her body. At the time, the only body shape that was accepted was slim.
“I was a square trying to fit into a hole. You read back now how nasty the comments were.”
But despite the best efforts of their critics to create a sibling rivalry, Dannii, 53, and Kylie, 56, remained a united force.
After Louis Walsh sneered “Dannii, who? Oh, Kylie’s sister!” at the 2008 Pride Of Britain Awards, the elder Minogue branded him a “little snit” and bashed him for being “offensive”.
In 2007, Dannii had joined Louis on The X Factor’s panel — but the toxic environment created by drama between the judges led to her walking away in 2010 for the sake of her own wellbeing.
Dannii said to Fearne Cotton on the Happy Place podcast this week: “I definitely had a moment where I was just like, ‘If this is what it is, I don’t know if it’s worth it for me’.
‘It could end tomorrow’
“I feel like I got caught up in a lot of kerfuffle where it was just not my personality to be involved.
“But I felt like there was a machine keeping it going because it was incredible for the show.”
Having started out as an actress and appearing on Aussie soap Home And Away, she switched to music and notched up 19 UK top 40 hits.
But her fellow X Factor judge Sharon Osbourne told Graham Norton on his talk show that Dannii was on the panel “because of her looks and not for her contributions to the music industry” — and alleged she got the gig by sleeping with Simon Cowell.
Show boss Simon later confirmed rumours that they had hooked up but Dannii remained silent.
On my last season, 20 million people watched the final, but I just got to a point where I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore
Dannii on X Factor role
And with female judges on the hit talent show being scrutinised for their looks and outfits even more than the contestants, it’s no surprise that Dannii’s mental health suffered.
She added: “On my last season of X Factor, 20 million people watched the final, but I just got to a point where I didn’t want to be a part of it any more.
“I thought, this show is going that way. In my soul, I’m going in a completely different direction.
“I dug deep into myself and found some strength [to quit].”
Former X Factor contestants Katie Waissel and Rebecca Ferguson have spoken up in recent years about the toxic culture on set, calling for more duty-of-care in the industry — especially on reality shows.
Dannii has been pleased to see big changes in that regard after presenting BBC Three’s groundbreaking 2023 gay dating show I Kissed A Boy, which offered round-the-clock mental health care to all participants and crew — including its host.
She said: “That was the first time they thought my mental health was important, ever.
“It would have been really helpful back in The X Factor days to have anything like that.”
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Mental health awareness was sadly lacking in the noughties, when Dannii was riding the showbiz rollercoaster at full pelt.
Looking back, she confessed that she’d had an “addiction” to working non-stop to get every job, fearing “someone else would step in and take it, and you wouldn’t have that chance again”.
Dannii added: “Any kind of performer just thinks, ‘It could end tomorrow.’”
But thankfully, it seems the industry has changed for the better, especially for older women. Dannii said: “When I was growing up, there were never women beyond a certain age on TV.
“To now be able to see other women doing it, you think, ‘It is possible.’
“Now, we’re enabled to breathe and say, ‘This is OK [to take a break].’ We’re in the era where [1990s] supermodels are back on the runway. And I love Jane Fonda.
“So many incredible women are giving me hope that I can go home and have these crucial years with my son before he’s ready to go and do things on his own.”
‘I just wanted to nest’
Giving birth to son Ethan in 2010 changed her focus.
After 22 years in the UK, Dannii fled to Melbourne in 2011 with Ethan and then-partner Kris Smith, a model, to be closer to her family.
Having prioritised her career for so long, she surprised herself at how much she was willing to give up once she became a mum as she re-evaluated her life.
She told Fearne: “I had my baby and I wanted to be around family.
“I never envisaged going back — but then I never saw myself being a mum. As all the hormones were moving inside my body, I just wanted to nest. It was that primal mum thing — wanting to be surrounded by love and security.
“I thought, ‘I’ve worked hard and long enough to be able to do this.’ It felt right.”
The former pop star has since dipped her toes back in TV, with stints on The X Factor Australia and the Aussie version of The Masked Singer.
But she says she is happiest when she’s “mucking around” on the family farm with all the Minogue clan — including Kylie, who also returned to Australia in 2021 to be closer to her loved ones.
When Kylie was sick with cancer, that was hard as a family to go through. The minute she got through her treatment, my best friend died of cancer.
Dannii credits her family for saving her in the dark times — including when she got divorced from her first husband, actor Julian McMahon, in 1995 and was left penniless, and when Kylie was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005.
The singer had a partial mastectomy and rounds of radiation and chemotherapy, before being given the all-clear a year later.
Dannii said: “When Kylie was sick with cancer, that was hard as a family to go through. The minute she got through her treatment, my best friend died of cancer.
“I was slowly trying to deal with that [but] my brain, my heart, nothing had caught up.
“We never know what’s around the corner. Family got me through that.” These days, Dannii is loved-up with her long-term partner, music producer Adrian Newman.
Her priority remains spending precious time with her family and only taking on work that’s “important” to her.
She explained: “I’ve spent my life travelling around the world, being away, missing birthdays, weddings, funerals.
“I’m really trying to find the balance now.”
And that balance means taking the good with the bad in life.
She said: “You can’t have just the happiness without everything else.
“If you accept there’s light and dark, it’s all part of it. Just think, this too shall pass.”
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