Kylie Queen of the World

by Julie Aspinall

  And anyway, what else would she do if she wasn’t working any more? ‘I don’t know how I would react,’ said Kylie in an interview, when asked that question. ‘Because it takes so long to get used to this kind of life. I love making videos, I like performing. Whether it’s a photo shoot, making videos or meeting kids in hospital, I really love working. Oh God, I sound like a beauty contestant, don’t I? “I like pets!”’

  Kylie was also once asked if she ever thought about what she would have been doing had fate not led her into show business. ‘I do think about it, but I don’t think about it for too long,’ she admitted. ‘When I was at school, I thought I might go to business school, so I sometimes wonder what I’d be like if I worked in an office. You know, Kylie the office girl. I reckon I wouldn’t be any different, you know, I’d still be me. I’d still be a performer wherever I was.’ And very probably a rich performer, too.

  15

  Comeback Kylie

  In the early years of the new century, Kylie’s life seemed to be firmly back on track. She herself coined the phrase ‘Comeback Kylie,’ and was for the moment, happily ensconced with James. None other than Madonna recognised this when she wore a t-shirt emblazoned with Kylie’s name – Kylie herself was flabbergasted. ‘Here was this icon,’ she said. ‘I mean, I was like every other teenager, putting on a million belts and lace gloves – and to see my name on her t-shirt was surreal, it was great. I’ve only ever met her at the MTV awards where she wore the t-shirt. The first thing I think I said was, “Hi! Nice to meet you.” She asked me if I liked the t-shirt and I said, “Yes, I do like the t-shirt, thank you.”’ Later she was more pragmatic, musing on what would be the cost of advertising her name on the most widely viewed billboard in the world.

  This was also the year in which she was happiest with James, who she had met at the 2000 Brit Awards. James was a successful model in his own right, starring in the Peugeot 206 and L’Oreal advertisements and initially it seemed that this might be the one to last. ‘It’s very sweet and I don’t want to put any pressure on it,’ said Kylie firmly when asked about her new beau. ‘I’ve felt in the past that I’ve been searching for something and I haven’t been able to find it. I’ve had times when I’ve said to my girlfriends, ‘Oh, you’ve all got boyfriends and I haven’t.’

  Initially the omens were good. Kylie called James her ‘delightful scruff from Essex,’ and said he treated her like a princess. That he was seven years her junior didn’t seem to be an issue, as with any couple, the two met one another’s parents and visited each other’s earliest homes, much to the bemusement of some of James’s friends. One bumped into the couple in November 2001 and was taken aback when he discovered who James’s new girlfriend was. ‘When I saw him, they’d just been bowling and seemed really happy,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t know who the woman on his arm was but he introduced her as Kylie. I nearly fell through the floor when I discovered it was the Kylie. We were all gobsmacked when we found out he was going out with her. It’s really strange because he fancied her for about 14 years. Everyone remembers how smitten he was with her at school. Teachers would even sing the Dolly Parton hit ‘Jolene’ to him but changed the words to ‘Charlene’ after her character in Neighbours. James was always a good laugh about it, though and never got upset. He had pictures of her up in his bedroom and never missed Neighbours. Now he’s got her in his bed, the lucky sod.’

  But this might well provide a clue as to why the relationship didn’t last. After one of their mini-bust ups before the final break, James actually denied having Kylie’s picture up on his wall as a schoolboy: it might have been by that time he had tired of being the very much less famous half of a celebrity couple. Indeed, he also spoke about the strains placed on a relationship when one part of it is as famous as Kylie. Like so many men, it seemed he simply couldn’t cope with the fact that his girlfriend was on the receiving end of so much more attention than him.

  Kylie and James moved into a flat in London’s cutting edge Clerkenwell district, but despite her new found happiness, Kylie was clearly determined to never again let her career falter as it had done some years earlier. The round of work continued to be never-ending and she continued to go from strength to strength, with the latest accolade coming in the form of a second Kylie waxwork at Madame Tussauds. The waxwork raised some eyebrows, not least from the lady herself, given that it had her on her hands and knees, with the famous bottom rising into the air, clad only in a basque and knickers. Indeed, it was widely held to be vulgar, not the impression Kylie or Madame Tussauds wished to convey, and so after some deliberation it was covered in the much longer black dress worn by the original. Kylie was greatly relieved. ‘As for my waxwork at Madame Tussauds, let’s just say I was a little surprised at the slight lack of wardrobe judgment,’ she said.

  For a while, though, Kylie’s relationship with James seemed serious. When she appeared on Parkinson in February 2002, Parky asked if she was ready to get married and have children. ‘I think so – yes,’ she said. ‘I always try not to say yes or no because who knows? But I’m sure it will happen. My career has been the most important thing for a long, long time.’

  Her career was going stunningly well. In September 2001 another challenge had been overcome; she went head to head in the charts with Victoria Beckham, who was releasing her first solo single, ‘Not Such An Innocent Girl.’ Kylie, meanwhile, was about to release, ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head,’ written by Cathy Dennis and Rob Davies. Billed as the ‘battle of the babes,’ the media was greatly entertained by the coincidence that both records were to be released on the same date. Kylie was cautious. ‘As soon as I saw we had the same release date, I thought, hmmm, has anybody thought about changing the schedule?’ she admitted. ‘I knew there would be a media frenzy if we stuck with that date.’ In the event she had nothing to worry about, ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ went straight in at number one, her thirty-fifth single in the top 20, ultimately selling 306,000.

  In acknowledgement of her status as superstar-cum-national treasure, Kylie was awarded her own show, An Audience With Kylie Minogue, which featured such luminaries as Julian Clary, Boy George, Melinda Messenger, both Minogue siblings and Kermit the Frog, with whom she sang ‘Especially For You.’ She also put in an acclaimed performance as the Absinthe Fairy in the film Moulin Rouge.

  But it was a heavy workload and the relationship also entailed long absences. In mid 2002, Kylie went on a highly successful world tour, the Fever tour, culminating in her native Australia. And it was there, when playing in Sydney, that she had a reunion with Kell Hutchence, Michael’s father. The first great love of her life was still clearly on her mind. Kylie had sent Kell and his second wife Susie tickets to the show. Afterwards, they went backstage to see her in her dressing room. ‘It was an emotional moment,’ said Kell. ‘There alone with a cup of tea sat Kylie. She was sitting there quietly in her robe, pretty exhausted from the show but just glowing.’

  ‘She was very gracious and just the same sweet girl I remembered, so friendly and good natured. You couldn’t meet a more unpretentious and normal person. It’s so easy to see why Michael loved her. I kept thinking, ‘If only Michael could see her now.’ I congratulated her on her wonderful performance and she mentioned Michael. We spoke quite a lot about him, reminisced a little about the past, but I want to keep those things private. She did tell me though that when she did her show at Wembley Stadium, she was thinking of Michael and his performance there.’ What James Gooding made of the fact that Kylie still seemingly considered Michael to be the great love of her life is not something he would want to discuss, but it is unlikely to have gone down well. Even so, the two managed a brief break in Bali at the end of the tour.

  Nor was she any more prepared to put her career on hold for him than she had been for any of her other boyfriends. As she prepared the release of a new single, ‘Come Into My World’, she won her first major US award, the MTV Video Music award for Best Choreography for ‘Can’
t Get You Out Of My Head’. She then immediately flew off to Paris to film the video that went with her new release, a punishing work schedule for anyone, and so it is perhaps not surprising that in September 2002, rumours first began to circulate of both a break-up with James and some sort of nervous collapse. What is certain is that Kylie flew back to Australia for a few weeks holiday with her mother.

  Certainly everyone was keen to play down suggestions that Kylie was in any way unwell. ‘She’s been working really hard and she’s having a holiday with her mum,’ snapped a spokeswoman for Kylie’s Australian record label, Festival-Mushroom Records. ‘What she does on her holidays is none of her record company’s business.’ Dannii Minogue was equally clear that Kylie was perfectly well. ‘Kylie has not had a nervous breakdown,’ she said. ‘She has been working round the clock for three years and who can blame her for taking a short break. She decided to go to a remote part of Oz because she wanted to spend quality time with our mum without any hassle.’

  But Dannii also revealed something else – that the rumours of a split with James were turning out, temporarily at least, to be true. ‘Kylie has had a lot of ups and downs this year,’ she said. ‘James has been one of the downs. Obviously she’s been very upset about splitting up as they had been together for a long time. But marrying James was never on Kylie’s list of priorities. And neither was having kids with him. She’s not worried about her biological clock ticking. She’s still a young woman and will have kids when the time is right.’

  Kylie herself finally spoke out. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m more than ok,’ she said in response to questions about her health. ‘I am single and I must say I haven’t been out, just spending time with my family. Just being, which is normally the hardest thing for me to do. So I haven’t really felt single or not single. I’ve just been being me.’

  In actual fact, this was by no means the end of the relationship. Kylie and James did not break off contact. Indeed, they continued to see one another regularly when they could. After that break with her mother, Kylie was back on form and ending 2002 with as much energy as it had begun. Her schedule was more frenetic than ever: a greatest hits compilation; appearances on the London stage in The Play What I Wrote and the Royal Variety Performance; more awards from MTV Europe for Best Pop Act and Best Dance Act and plans to make more appearances in the United States. Something had to give in her relationship with James, and it did.

  The final split, when it came, was a bitter one. Indeed, the signs were there that there were problems from the start. The pair had been pictured arguing on numerous occasions both before and after the initial break and matters were not helped when James was photographed with Sophie Dahl and the socialite Beverley Bloom. It was also apparent James had a roving eye. ‘They are always rowing,’ Michael Edwards-Hammond, Dannii’s old boyfriend, said as far back as 2001. ‘It’s partly from jealousy on both sides. James is still a bit of a boy and has a real eye for the ladies. He can’t help flirting and it gets Kylie’s back up. And he doesn’t like the inevitable attention she gets from men.’

  It was this jealousy that was to provide a spectacular bust-up. By February 2003 Kylie was ready for yet another venture. Her lingerie range, Love Kylie was launched in the UK after a successful start in Australia, with Kylie explaining she was very involved in all aspects of the line. ‘I’ve always had that since day one, starting first as an actress, “Oh, you can’t sing, you can’t do that, you can’t do this,”’ she said. ‘I’m so used to confronting the pigeonholes. I’ve battled against that for a long time and quite successfully. Now I think people expect different things from me. I don’t know quite how I did it but I am pleased.’

  But on her return to the UK, while her professional life was running smoothly, her personal life was not. James had been brooding about the split, becoming, according to some friends, utterly obsessed with his ex. And in fact, it rapidly turned into the nastiest break-up Kylie had ever had. Despite the fact that he was soon to reveal the full extent of his own infidelity, James had become increasingly angry with Kylie and found it impossible to move on. Shortly after the split he was upset by reports linking her to Jamiroquai singer Jay Kay, but that was nothing compared to his behaviour at and after the Brit Awards held in February 2003.

  The problem could be summed up in two words: Justin Timberlake. The story of what happened that night was to go down as one of the most notorious episodes in Kylie’s career. The US singer performed a duet with Kylie at the awards, at one point grabbing the world’s most famous bottom as they danced. Kylie clearly didn’t object and Justin went on to wax lyrical on the subject: ‘On a scale of one to 10, Kylie’s bum is 58,’ he announced, later adding, ‘I hear everyone in this country is obsessed with Kylie’s bum. I can see why – now I’m obsessed with it too.’ Kylie was equally pleased by her dancing partner. ‘I’ve fancied him for a while,’ she confided to a friend. ‘He’s a great mover.’

  Unfortunately James was in the audience and was enraged by what he saw on stage. ‘Yeah, I really enjoyed it tonight,’ he snarled to onlookers. ‘That really made the performance for me – it was the best bit.’ Alarmed by his increasingly aggressive behaviour, Kylie told her management to keep James away from her and slipped off to dinner at the Montpelliano restaurant in Knightsbridge, with her sister Dannii, Janet Jackson – and Justin.

  The quartet then went on to the Sanderson Hotel for a party held by EMI. It was then that the drama really began: James managed to sneak in and launched into a screaming fit at Kylie, accusing her of making a mockery of him and demanding to know the truth about Jay Kay. At first, Kylie tried to calm the situation down, introducing him to Justin and trying to be polite. But the extremely drunk James would not be placated and soon began yelling and shouting again. Clearly shocked, Kylie and Dannii tried to leave, only to have a furious James block their path, shouting at them, before security guards finally got him under control.

  ‘Kylie smiled, trying to keep calm and not to be seen to have a row in public, but James wouldn’t let up,’ said an onlooker. ‘As Kylie went to walk out, James stepped in the way and two security men stepped in and held him back as she left.’ Kylie herself didn’t manage to keep cool, ‘I don’t want James anywhere near me,’ she yelled to one of the guards as she passed. ‘Keep him fucking away from me. I don’t want him getting in my car. Get me out of here now.’

  After this, the night assumed an element of farce. A furious Kylie drove off in one car; meanwhile Justin, Dannii and Dannii’s friend Ben went off in another. And indeed, Dannii’s presence was an effective smokescreen: the next morning rumours flew around the music business to the effect that she had spent the night with Justin Timberlake. It was only some weeks later that it emerged through the press that the lucky girl was none other than Kylie, who sneaked off at 6am the following morning. Dannii later confessed, ‘Ben and I dropped Justin off at the hotel and went home and didn’t go inside the hotel.’

  Justin was coy when asked about it later. He admitted to the paper, ‘She came in late and we had some drinks. She was upset about her argument with James Gooding and I was there to look after her. Kylie’s very cool and such an intelligent, gorgeous woman. It was a great night at the Brits. Kylie was truly out of this world. We were at the EMI party afterwards and were all just hanging out and drinking. Then all this commotion happened with Kylie and James, so I gave her sister Dannii a lift. But she didn’t want to come into the hotel for a drink and I went in alone. Then I got a call from Kylie and I said come to the hotel and have a drink. That’s all I wanna say on the matter.’

  In fact, there was one suggestion as to what had happened by Greg Brennan, the celebrity photographer. ‘Kylie’s car eventually pulled up to the Mandarin and Mike Moorcroft, who looks after the UK end of security for all American stars, came out and escorted her and her personal assistant inside,’ he said. ‘He put his arm around Kylie and shielded her from anyone watching, but I know it was Kylie because I know what car she had that
night. All three of them ran in and around five to ten minutes later the PA woman came out again, jumped into the car which was still outside and drove off. Kylie was in the hotel and left about 6am – by the back way.’

  Nor was that the end of the Kylie/Justin flirtation. A little while later, both were due to appear at the Grammy Awards in New York, where they again performed together. ‘She’s a great mover and we had a great time at the Grammys last week too,’ said the gallant Justin afterwards. He had to leave for Los Angeles the next day, at which point Kylie cancelled her plans to stay in New York for a week and went on to LA, too. ‘She was due to stay in New York and cleared her diary,’ said a source in the News of the World article. ‘But mysteriously she got on a flight to LA with her PA. She and Justin have been in contact and met up at her hotel.’ The hotel in question was the Chateau Marmont and it was a fortuitous choice, for it was there that she bumped into a rising French actor.

  Meanwhile, returning to the Brits evening, James was still continuing to cause trouble. After being set free by the security guards at The Sanderson, he headed to Kylie’s flat in Chelsea, continuing to scream and bang on the door before calling her on her mobile. A passerby actually heard his half of the call: ‘It seemed she was saying she was inside the house,’ he revealed. James could be clearly heard on the street: ‘Where are you?’ he said. ‘You’re lying, you’re not at home, I’m outside. Tell me where you are. You’re lying.’

  The following morning, once he’d sobered up, James was appalled by his own actions and tried for one last reconciliation with Kylie. ‘He’s knows he’s made a fool of himself and that drink had a lot to do with it,’ Amelia Trowbridge, a friend of his revealed. ‘But he’ll knock that on the head if Kylie will come back. He’s been on the phone to her constantly. He’s just pleading with her to take him back.’ But Kylie had finally had enough – which led James to attempt a terrible revenge.