Irish Director Reveals Surprising Encounter with Kylie

The Irish director of ’s hit documentary has admitted he had no idea the superstar would reveal her second diagnosis on the series.

and Bafta-winning Michael Harte said he was just as shocked as the viewers when the Australian singer revealed in her new documentary, Kylie, that she had been diagnosed with cancer again in 2021.

In the documentary, the pint-sized singer explains how she wanted to keep the news to herself, admitting she struggled to ‘find the right time’ to announce her illness during the success of her Grammy-winning hit, Padam Padam.

Speaking of Kylie’s shock announcement during filming, Harte – who edited Beckham and Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie – told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘I had no clue. They talked about certain songs that had certain meanings to them that the audience don’t know about.

‘I didn’t know what song someone was talking about, and then she talked about the song Story and what it meant, and just completely opened up,’ he said.

‘There was one person, one of her colleagues in the recording studio, [who] hadn’t heard it either on the day, because Kylie says it in the documentary – she points and says, “You didn’t even know this”.’

The Letterkenny native also admitted he almost turned down the opportunity to visit Kylie in the recording studio and could have missed the crucial moment – because he thought they had enough material.

‘The truth is… I’m an editor as well. I’ve edited this [documentary]. So I was editing as I was kind of shooting. I was doing both. I was jumping between the two which, you know, was difficult but very satisfying.

‘I had got to a point in the project where… Kylie had given us some amazing interviews, and I felt like we had a lot of depth in the film, and I had kind of structured a three-part series in the edit, and I thought, we’re kind of done, and we’re pretty close to finished.

‘She texted me one day out of the blue and said: “Look, I’m going to record some Christmas music. Do you want to come into the studio and hang out?”

‘And I was like, Man, we’re done. Like, I don’t know if we even had the budget to continue, because I had bought us two years, and subsequently it turned out that one of the songs she sang on that day was her first Christmas number one, and I remember thinking “we’re never going to finish this film – stop making hits”,’ he laughed.

‘When I got there, and as we were recording, I remember thinking, “this is nice stuff. I’m not sure what we’ll use it for”.

‘And then the conversation [about Kylie’s cancer] started.’

In the documentary, Kylie I was able to keep that to myself. Not like the first time.

‘Thankfully, I got through it, again, and all is well. Hey, who knows what’s around the corner, but pop music nurtures me... My passion for music is greater than ever.

‘I don’t feel obliged to tell the world, and actually, I just couldn’t at the time because I was just a shell of a person.’

The 57-year-old admitted she ‘didn’t want to leave the house again’ at one point.

‘Padam Padam opened so many doors for me but on the inside, I knew that cancer wasn’t just a blip in my life,’ she said.

‘And I really just wanted to say what happened so I can let go of it. I’d sit through interviews and every opportunity I thought, “now’s the time”, but I kept it to myself.’

Harte said Kylie’s second cancer revelation was ‘all very authentic’, and the production team later asked the singer if she wanted to remove the footage.

‘She said she didn’t want to do this just for effect,’ said Harte.

‘So we took time, and our amazing producer, John Battsek, who, regardless of the schedule and regardless of budget, understood how important this moment was, and said, “take your time, think about it, we’ll talk to Netflix and say we’re not finished, and we may have more material.”

‘So we took a took a lot longer to finish the film, and I think rightly so, and out of respect for her, because it’s a real moment for her to talk about that.’

Harte recalled the moment he first met the icon, who turned up late for their meeting at LA’s Chateau Marmont.

He joked he went from feeling ‘really nervous’ to ‘p***ed off’ while he waited for Kylie.

‘She hates me saying that, because she thinks it’s not true, but I remember I went from being very nervous to just get p***ed off, just because it made me more nervous, because it was a bit surreal.’

But the down-to-earth superstar quickly won him over.

He added: ‘If you ever meet Kylie, very, very, very quickly, she completely disarms you with just charm, and you know she’s not what you would expect from somebody who’s had such a successful career in the limelight for so long. 

'I think probably the reason that she’s been in the limelight for so long is because of the way she is, and she has a cracking sense of humour.

‘The further we got into the project, when we became more comfortable with each other, we really clicked as well – I think we did anyway – as pals, or not even necessarily pals, but we just became very, very comfortable with each other, and we just trusted each other.’