Other INTERESTING INTERVIEWS with Kylie:
The Pop Princess says the real her is about to be revealed on the BBC1 talent show after will.i.am convinced her to join him.
Marc Jefferies for Mirror.co.uk:
Pop princess Kylie Minogue is no stranger to Spinning Around, but 14 years after the release of that hit, the singer is doing it all over again.
This time, however, it is from the comfort of an executive chair rather than in tiny gold hotpants.
She is one of two new judges on talent show The Voice, which returns on Saturday, but getting the 5ft Aussie to actually hit her buzzer and spin her chair around in approval might be tougher than the wannabes would hope.
Chatting backstage at the BBC studios in Salford, Greater Manchester, Kylie admits she cannot make decisions, which, she points out, makes judging tricky.
She giggles: “I don’t like decisions at the best of times, this is constant decision-making, so it’s just having to go with that gut reaction.”
But, after years of singing and acting, Kylie thinks – or possibly fears – the real her is about to be revealed. She laughs: “I know I’m a dork, that much I know, but now everyone will be reminded. All you can do is be yourself.”
Kylie has never been one to let criticism stand in her way and she has shrugged off snobbishness about her Neighbours roots and cheesy pop career to become an honorary national treasure here.
At 45 she is still a pin-up, and has rocketed to worldwide fame, with more than 70 million record sales around the globe, seven UK number ones and a string of awards.
But despite her wealth of experience, the decision over whether to take the judging role was tricky.
Kylie was close to signing up in 2012 when The Voice was first launched, but she wavered. There were allegedly rows about money, but she insists it was the prospect of showing her emotions in front of the camera that terrified her most and made her stall until now.
She says: “It mustn’t have been the right time because I literally lost sleep back then. I really felt a lot of pressure and I didn’t know what the right decision was.
“You know it’s a big opportunity. My record company were really keen for me to do it. But I went with what I felt and that was the right decision because this feels great, it really feels like it’s the right time.
"I watched the show, I was a fan. It’s a great platform. Something clicked in me.”
Kylie joins US star will.i.am, Tom Jones and surprise newbie, Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson, on the panel.
But she admits she still took some coaxing from will.i.am, who hijacked her meeting with executive producer Moira Ross in LA.
She says: “I had a meeting and Mr will.i.am bombed it. I just had one question really, after hearing about stats from the show and whatever. My question to Will was ‘how was the experience?’ I wanted to know, what does it feel like?
“He said he loved the experience, he learnt a lot about himself. So long story short, I thought OK, that’s cool. Yes, I haven’t had an experience like this before.”
The show will give viewers a new experience, too, as normally bubbly Kylie finally shows her emotions.
She is rarely seen without a smile – even during her tough 2005 battle with breast cancer.
But during the new series’ pre-recorded Battle rounds, normally composed Kylie is seen with tears in her eyes – allowing fans to see a softer side to the star.
Now bosses hope Kylie’s arrival will revamp the show.
The final last year pulled in 7.2 million viewers – but earlier episodes struggled to get more than five million. And will.i.am, 38, candidly admits that he would not have signed up for the third series without Kylie joining.
In a thinly veiled dig at ex-judge Jessie J, who quit along with The Script’s Danny O’Donoghue, Will suggests Kylie will raise the bar.
He says: “It was hard to decide if I was going to do season three. We knew how things worked, so to imagine it with two people gone it was like, ‘Oh, we really had a thing going’.
"To then gel with two new people in front of all the UK with people judging how they gel, that is very daunting.
“And then when they told me the people they were suggesting. I was like, ‘Kylie would be amazing’ and Ricky, ‘whoa, that’s different’.
“I was thinking about the singers – there are a bunch of singers that need to have perspective on how to become a pop icon, no matter if you’re a freakin’ vocal gymnast or you sing pop songs galore.
“Each one wants to possess what Kylie’s accomplished and no one on the panel last year could provide that to the singers. So I was thinking, ‘Wow, Kylie would actually be awesome because she’s the only person in contemporary music that has that experience’.
“So, I was like, ‘let me see if Kylie does it. If she says yes, then I’ll say yes’.”
Judge Tom Jones, 73, warns winning does not mean instant success, after last year’s champ Andrea Begley and 2012’s Leanne Mitchell struggled to make a mark on the charts.
He says: “Even when you get a record contract, it doesn’t guarantee a hit. You know, it’s still another step. Until you actually get a hit record, then it becomes bigger. So it’s a step, we try to tell them that as well.
“Even when you win, you’re going to get a record contract, yes. But, you know, you’ve still got to wait.”
And despite her enormously successful career, Kylie has seen an element of that herself.
No matter what happens, one thing is for sure. Nothing stops our Kylie – not even the fact she needed special steps wheeled in to help her climb in to her judge’s chair.
xo K
