OpinionMay 22, 2026 — 11:00amWatching the new Kylie doco on Netflix wasn’t on my to-do list. I’m up to pussy’s bow looking into infrared face masks and how to save Insta recipes without screenshotting them.Look, I adore her music. Always have. Can still sing every word of Some Kind of Bliss and Too Much of a Good Thing. At my first wedding, Better the Devil You Know was our second song. I’ve kept her first three albums on vinyl through five house moves.Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan attend the launch for the Netflix documentary series Kylie, in London on Monday. John Phillips/Getty Images for NetflixBut apart from the songs and fashion, Kylie has never fascinated me. In, what, 35 years, she’s never said anything I’ve found truly smart or funny or even wry.What she’s shared in interviews has verged on banal. Basic. Especially during that era when she had the fake English accent. I’ve never thought, “God, I’d love to sit next to her at book group.”It says a lot about my personality that when late Models frontman James Freud slammed Kylie in his 2002 book as a famous tight arse who gave tiny end-of-tour bonuses to her musos, I felt sort of gleeful.Yep, I’m risking villagers marching on my place with pikes by saying this. Kylie is one of our very few legitimate national icons. It’s probably illegal not to gush about her unconditionally forever and tell strangers we can’t wait for her grand final show.But. I was scrolling while the porridge cooked on Thursday and couldn’t escape stories about Kylie. The doco’s “nine big takeaways”, headlines about her sex and drugs era, the previously secret second cancer diagnosis in 2021.So I put on the first ep, thinking: please, please, be more interesting than you’ve been before.And got hooked.Wowee. What a fantastic time capsule. Kylie – in the now-requisite white shirt on the now-requisite neutral couch in a well-lit room with big cupboards, à la the Beckham docos – talking through her life is so good.Still not super interesting. We hear in the valuable real estate of the first few minutes that she hates the sound of paper rustling. But heartfelt. Especially when she remembers Michael Hutchence.I defy you not to get misty when Kylie does. If you’re old enough to know that joy and loss sit side by side, her grief rockets you back to your own experiences of doomed combustible love.When she says, “I’ve probably been looking for something ever since ... and I haven’t got it,” the sentiment has such heft.The weird thing is that while it’s Kylie’s story, it’s also everyone’s story.The 1970s home movies of buck-toothed tiny Kylie on a trike, posing on a suburban lawn, on her bed after school making mix tapes on her cassette recorder – you can smell the apricot chicken and perm solution. Hear the “shut up, I’m taping” hissed at siblings barging in.There’s so much pop culture gold. Kylie and sister Dannii in matching dresses singing Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves on Young Talent Time. Kylie punching Jason Donovan in their first Neighbours scene. Jason filming real-life love Kylie doing her hair in a hotel bathroom.Also, PS, Jason is actually the standout star. He’s so honest and hilarious. Talks about when he and Kylie “came together” at a Sydney Travelodge. Hangs shit on himself for hiring a tiny cheap Ford and driving Kylie in it behind “rock god” Hutchence’s limo the night the INXS frontman and Singing Budgie met.What I didn’t expect: even two eps out of three in, Kylie’s boringness started to feel less like a character flaw and more like a superpower.She’s never been an arsehole. Or controversial. She’s kept her finances, her reputation and dignity intact through illness and mostly terrible taste in men. She doesn’t confuse fame with importance. She’d probably remember your coffee order.That kind of restraint – deliberate, careful, self-protective – suddenly feels like a ripper thing. More admirable than interesting.With Kylie, there’s no “this is the real me” campaign. Just a woman who kept showing up for decades and survived fame without becoming grotesque. There’s also no bitterness or victimhood, no ghastly bangings on about “people told me I was too much or not enough”.Hand on heart, go Kylie.Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.More:Pop cultureOpinionKylie MinogueFor subscribersMichael HutchenceFrom our partners