Dannii Minogue Works Hard | No Filter Podcast with Mia Freedman

Mamamia hi I'm Mayor Friedman and this is no filter the podcast where I have really candid conversations with people who have a big story to tell Dannii Minogue works hard in fact she's been working hard since she was 7 years old and I'm not sure if she's ever stopped back in the 70s and the 80s girls enough to remember those there was a show here in Australia called young talent time and it featured a core group of young performers kids really who were in our screens every single week and from when she was aged 7 to when she was 16 Dannii Minogue or danielle minogue as she was called back then was one of them Danni signed her first record deal at 17 and moved to New York by 23 she was married to an actor and the son of a former prime-minister Julian wood man it was a disaster and by 26 Danny was divorced she has been hounded by paparazzi in ways that you will not even believe she's recorded songs with her sister Kylie she's had a baby and throughout all of this Danny has built a successful brand for herself and for the last 12 years she has been a judge on reality TV shows and become absolutely internationally famous in a whole new way Danny has really lived a life and she joins me now to talk about all of it here is Danny Monica girl you've lived a life it's been yeah a lot you've really lived a life you're 47 now yep I'm 47 too and I grew up watching you and ytt young talent I'm and you a seven when you're first on television yeah that's mine crazy like Ethan is just turned nine and I can't imagine him doing work like I do it's no way but you kind of like I guess you're born for it or you when you have a great desire to do it then it just seems normal being a celebrity or a child star back then is very different to how it would be now right it was a different time [Music] thinking about it so much the other day because there's a lot that comes with the job there's good and there's bad and what are the good and whatever they had you know as a lot of as a kid well it was just it was different I got to do what I loved and that meant straight after school I went straight to rehearsals and there's no place I'd rather be on the weekend we worked all day Saturday and then Sunday was a rest day and then started all over again was the show live on Saturday night it was yeah it was different world two-inch tape like there was someone it like with the tape recording it and then it went in an archive and I don't know if they've even got all of those archives still I think a lot of stuff got destroyed when they moved out of that building but yeah it was live and it was pretty low low file okay compared to what TV shows these days but essentially I loved standing there and just the lights were pointing towards me and just everything else fell away and that's that's all I wanted to do and fame was different than - wasn't it there was no paparazzi there was no social media it was just you went and did what you did and then you went home and there was nothing else it's jealous at school I don't remember any of that because I was a and nerd and I still am a nerd and I got really good grades and wanted to keep good grades but was it was once I was getting older it was a bit of a struggle to keep that up and there were a few things I was not good at like pa was not my thing don't throw a ball at me don't expect me to throw a ball or catch anything and it's still the same so I said look why don't you just fail me on PA and then I can go into the library during that lesson and I can finish my homework and at lunchtime I'd be in there doing my homework so it meant that when I went to rehearsals and then finished at 7:00 8:00 at night I didn't have to start doing homework and kept my grade so I wasn't really in contact with other kids that much and I I think I befriended a couple of the tough kids at school and so nobody mess with me like when when I was walking down the corridor to class of from class nobody really messed with me so I don't I never had a bad experience with that but some of the kids did on the show particularly the boys one of the things I thought was well you tell me how brutal it was when you were 16 on your talent time you had to leave mm-hmm now that makes sense to show about young kids performing but how did that feel because it's not like you were it's a weird time to be retired yeah you knew it was coming and you remember that experience of being the new young kid so it opens up a spot for a new young kid to come in and you've kind of nurtured the little ones for a while but I don't think anyone really had anything to go on - that was the that were in the years that I was in Tina did go on and do her singing but I don't think there was an immediate plan from the minute she stopped it was kind of like okay what do I do now tiny Tina Moreno tiny Tina arena and we share years you as I remember watching her on the show and there was a character called Maxie Mouse it was kind of like Mickey Mouse and then joining the show and so she was sort of getting ready to leave and I was the little one and what was the feeling among all the kids on the show as someone went was it like everyone dreaded being that person or you are excited for them because they were jumping into basically unemployment yeah yeah it wasn't like okay now they can cuz like where do you go from young talent time there was there was no way I mean there were few people that worked on the crew that we're in the show years before like Greg Mills was our musical director and I remember watching him on the show Deborah Byrne Deborah Byrne yeah you it was just like the end of and and everybody just thought well that's my fun and that's my time and nothing's gonna happen after this so it was that sad and it's complete not a sadness and you see everyone crying when they leave my show no it was really sad and for the little ones it was like losing a member of your family because I spent more time with them than I did my own family so when someone left that was that was really a big part and these days there would be counseling and there would be career advice and there would be all of Judah's and all the drivers we had nothing it was just our family so if your family were very stable and able to cope with it that was cool some parents didn't understand the pressures that we were under and didn't probably know how to guide the kids through it and that wasn't the school's job or you teachers jobs a lot was put on the shoulders of like our musical director our choreographer there was amazing team of makeup artists and you know they would be there with cuddles when we would cry and make us feel good and help us up and what would make you cry in those times just being a kid and all with their disappointments I don't remember cry much at work but everyone would have the ups and downs I do remember one of the most awesome bits was we initially shared a green room with the show prisoner was being stuff field next door and there were no windows in this room and they all smoked Lizzie was there like I just remember that and I used to just sit there and just like and then we would all pile in like dressed as clowns or something then there'd be they're in their prison uniforms and they'd just be in a cloud of cigarette smoke and that was us at work so it was so different then that would never happen that's almost a show in itself just then we would just walk out a different exit to our studios I remember towards the end of your time might have even been your last show when Kylie came on and you performed sisters are doing it for us yeah wasn't the last show but it was near the end yeah yeah and I remember feeling sorry for her because you were such a star and she was kind of the slightly geeky older sister and I remember thinking yeah I remember thinking gosh that must be hard yeah and then at the time that you left young talent time is that when she was starting on neighbors and your trajectories were kind of going in opposite directions yeah she was starting in neighbors which was already on it around that time and so when Hearst I was rising you'd sort of been put out to pasture at the ridiculous age of 16 how did you process that from the show I mean I guess people saw me disappear but Michael couldn't ski sign me up to mushroom records and I went to New York to record an album so I actually never had that gap and that what do I do now really at 16 he signed you yes in 17 I was in New York City on my own recording an album living at Trump Tower walking 60 blocks on my own to the studio because I just loved walking in New York City and I I think oh my god if a thermistor dude think I would have a heart attack and that's when New York was really dangerous but I don't know I just I loved it and wanted to be immersed in the the energy and the culture and art an excitement your mom must have been nervous and your dad my god I guess so I don't I know it's not funny when you look back now and you realize how much our parents kind of stifled their own fears to let us experience the world but I don't know if I feel that way my children different a different time so when we were kids we lived in a court and we all had our bikes and it was just like go and play on your bikes until mom calls you in for dinner and wherever all the bikes were that's you knew that was the house that all the kids were out and I parents don't do that now you don't let kids out and just just go and come back around you know he can see the Sun setting but so that was really different so I guess by the time I was 17 and in New York we'd been running around for ages so your parents have always seemed to be involved enough in your own Kiley's career but in just the right way like there are so many templates from Kris Jenner to Lindsay Lohan's mom all these different people where it's just felt a mesh store no boundaries but your parents how did they handle it because they seemed to handle it so well and continue to handle it so well from what I know your mom still goes on tour sometime sufficient to be in they let us do what we wanted to do I think that it was very daunting for them it's like okay well if the girls want to do this that is this whole set of circumstances are now going to be part of our life and [Music] yeah they weren't management teams around when we were that young and so dad had to just work it out on his own and mum was there being our driver and complete support and they were really cool at letting us make our own mistakes and choices and live it on our own but just be there to guide and help so I think it's really hard cuz I'm like so hands-on as a mom but they also I remember made some really smart decisions I was coming up in magazines around that time that you and Kylie were sort of heading into the stratosphere and I remember when we'd try to buy photos of you guys or when they'd be interviews it would all be very tightly controlled in terms of the right salutary blow Hey dB that wasn't yeah that wasn't mom and dad that was terribly me so Kylie was managed by him first and then he took me on as well and he just had a policy that it's very specific what the photos are who owns them and was really smart business it was great yeah what's there and because with everyone else it was like the Wild West but you guys were always very much locked down and it was controlled in a way that was really advantageous to you yeah and which is frustrating from a media point of view but I recognized it at the time as being smart from a management point of view totally and I think he had lots of friends in America that were in management and were lawyers and then he'd been traveling to London with Kylie for a long time and she was on this wave of neighbors and Peterborough pop songs where everyone wanted a piece of what she was doing so it's like okay well if you want it then here's here the rules that go with it and if you don't want to deal with that then don't so it kind of just set up from the beginning and I got to have Terry as my manager as well and sort of was under the same rules tell me about your wedding day oh my god it was something that I just wanted to enjoy but it was quite difficult because there was such a storm there was the private storm of Julian's mum and I tried to navigate it as best I could as a 23 year old the only 23 mm-hmm how old is Julian he was not much older than me and we just had no idea how to handle it but we're just trying to you wrote in your autobiography about having a difficult relationship with his mum she was no relationship she wouldn't speak to me I wasn't allowed near her in the house she said she wasn't coming to the wedding we paid for everything set seats aside and said you'd decided up until the last minute few want to come and come if you don't want to come don't like me hurtful and she came and I'm like you won't even Ben ruin me but then you turn off and it was yeah it was it was wild on what basis was she so difficult and so incredibly unreasonable about you why didn't she like you I felt that it was that I wasn't from the same stock as what her son was from she didn't support her son I did I paid for everything and I worked every day to earn that money to pay for everything he was a struggling I was like if I'm not good enough his son but I'm literally doing all the things that you would want somebody to do but that's okay I wasn't born you know with a silver spoon in my mouth so I can't change that and I'm not gonna try to to change how you feel about me and I think it must have been incredibly hard for him it was upsetting for me but it wasn't hard I didn't love this woman I didn't know her I wasn't your parents must have been pissed off I mean I he was just difficult though difficult or you were just crazy in love and you were 23 and what I wanted to do it and I was gonna go through no matter what and you supported him yeah absolutely yeah so he was living in New York got a soap opera he was earning money but I paid for everything did you ever talk about from New York and and I was living in London I was traveling every two weeks to New York to see him and I just not only ran out of money I was in debt and then the marriage was off so I you know when someone is no longer supporting you but he could absolutely support himself by then so he was off to other things and it was what it was so I that was a huge struggle emotionally physically mentally financially if every part of my life to come back from that so but it was my choice I went into the marriage I chose to try and get him started I thought marriage was a long-term thing so I'll support you until you really get on your feet because I've been working for many years in my life and then we can support each other have you stayed in touch no was there ever a time when things were cordial or it was a just like this was didn't and it didn't work out let's go our separate ways mm-hmm afterwards you're in debt man you got an offer mm-hmm from Playboy mm-hmm how did that come about and what was your reaction I don't know Terry blame me the manager that I was talking about before said here's this offer Australian playboy would like you to do this shoot do you want to do it I said do you know what is the offer and I wanted to do it and I knew it would get me out of the mess that I'd got myself because your money was good yeah and I'd have complete control of it and do exactly what I wanted to do and my dad just begged me not to do it and really upset him and so please please don't do this once you do it it's there forever you can never take that and I'm like that's good advice dad like it's very sensible but I'm not going to ask my family for money Julian I've asked him and he will not help me at all and I have bills to pay and so this is what I'm gonna do but thanks it is actually good advice but I can't do that and I still feel good about that decision I still feel really good that I didn't ask my family for money because I I felt like I'd put them through enough just with the wedding with a lady McMahon with everything and then them seeing me completely physically fall apart I don't need to ask for one more thing on top of that the photoshoot was a very enjoyable experience it was just awesome how do you prepare for a playboy shoot it was just fun it was so low-key we just got an A in a car and drove out into the Nevada desert there's no one there it wasn't like you had to like lock down this set or anything do you have to navigate like how much will show in what you know I'll show them do you have to negotiate all of that and where there's some things that you weren't now that's my line oh yeah I just wanted it to be beautiful I'm like the body is beautiful and I'm happy to show my body but it's not going to be overly revealing and I just want them to be happy beautiful shots which I still to this day think they are there's a girl who's really happy within herself and I think it was my just like oh my god I can see a light at the end of the tunnel and I can see myself getting out of this absolutely dark mess you know so it meant everything to me and so the a chapter in my autobiography was saved by the bunny and it was and I think that magazine was incredibly helpful to a lot of people that worked on it whether they're the women being photographed in it or working on the magazine or whatever it was provided so many incredible jobs and I think that the women were in the power see of what they wanted to do and that was way ahead of its time did you get your boobs on before or after after did you feel I mean I can't imagine that in you know you were like 25 26 and when you did playboy there's not a lot of 25 26 year-old actually women of any age who are comfortable in their skin and comfortable entirely with their bodies how did you feel on the day of the shoot and and sort of leaning up to it I felt great particularly yeah it was just it was my freedom it was like that moment in Selma and the Wiis when they're in the car and they're like look at each other and they put their foot down that was it me saying yes it was in their car driving off the edge putting my foot down going absolutely this is this is my decision this is what I want to do and this is the best thing for me right now why did you get your boobs if you felt so good about your body what was that about um I I got them done quite a bit later I just really wanted chested yeah I got way like a yeah I really wanted to get them done I've always been quite hippy so I felt like it kind of balanced out my body there was also like back then you never really had images in women's magazines that showed a variety of different body shapes and I think these days is so much more presented where girls can find someone that they identify with and they feel good about that and social media is good for that actually yeah the whole selfie culture yeah some people say it's vacuous but the good part is that every woman with a different shaped body has a camera and computer images out of yourself yeah it it really was sharing that that powerful women and not being dictated just by the magazines that we were presented with and you know I grew up with you know Elle McPherson was the dolly girl and I never ever gonna look like that'll be like that it's do the amazonian yeah Australian beach girl yeah and then getting to London and it was Kate Moss and unless you were 16 and could wear a slip dress and have your nipples out and be rock and roll and dadada and you were nobody and I don't know it was just I guess my kind of way of just taking ownership of myself it was something I wanted to do and I don't again I don't regret it was it easy to Bret um could you breastfeed can you breastfeed boots yeah with real boobs not real bit yeah yes sometimes with real boobs you can't breastfeed but I was like yeah that's true you um when you are in London yes your career was in London so I remember for many years well even still now London was kind of your home right 22 years yes my mum's Welsh I didn't need visas and stuff to stay there so initially I had a right of abode in my passport and then they changed the laws where I keep my Australian passport and get a British one so I snapped it up straight away because I was working all around Europe and I had to process these are for every show I was doing all my dances and stuff were British so they could go anywhere and it was like to take on a gig I would have to work out the amount of days it would take me to get a visa if I could say yes or no to the gig and that's how I earned my money that was my living doing live music shows so it was a pain in the butt so as soon as I could get a British passport I did and I initially left and went there for a three-week trip with a suitcase and lived out of a hotel for two years until I thought I was going to go mental and I needed a place where I could unpack the suitcase into this day suitcases bother me I hate seeing them I hate seeing tickets for flights around as soon as I get home that has got to go away I just spent my life I just spent my life on a plane getting on or off or into a hotel out of a hotel packing and I had no foundation and so coming from being in Australia having such a great solid family base like foundations always been my thing it's like just being wishy-washy and like that is that's not me I don't know what that is so I actually thought well I probably probably am gonna stay a little bit longer I still didn't think it was gonna be a lot longer and I think I took on an apartment for three months just to just to be able to unpack you had 13 number one UK dance hits right yeah like you were an absolute powerhouse when you pivoted from I guess pop music to dance music yeah and there were years and years that you were absolutely on top of your game what's that world like the kind of dance world performing in clubs well I didn't think that I would be a part of that I listened to that music a lot but it was London's a very different scene and music is very separated and the dancing is it's cool and it doesn't invite in pop singers so it was it was a shock to be a part of that so there's the most influential DJ in the UK is Pete Tong so he's known as the godfather of dance music and he had his own label double F Double R through London records which through Warner's and he had this track that had been hit in Ibiza that summer as an instrumental like when a track can just take people just as an instrumental it like all summer and you've got people coming in from every country around the world it's wow there's something about that so he said I would love you to sing a song on this track and I was like me and he was around the time where they were doing that stuff where people being Punk'd and stuff and so really honestly thought this was like going to end up at some funny video and I didn't believe it but this this track was incredible and ended up doing this song and it was definitely the you know the hand of God like when Pete Tong said I've asked her to do this record it's like you're indoctrinated yeah nobody questioned me being a part of the dance music scene and then I got in there and as you do in any profession you might be given the chance but then you get there and you work your butt off because the other people who hadn't in there had worked for that and they you know growing up in into that scene I wasn't from that scene but I have worked so hard in music and I'm just I'm learning a whole new world of people so I was just prepared to get there and work hard and what is working hard to look like that was definitely a seven day a week job because you are either preparing something releasing something or on the road promoting and sometimes those things are all happening at once and when that happens and there's gigs to do you don't know how long they're gonna last for so you do them but I was so happy to do it it was just the best fun experience and when I was doing club gigs there were really beautiful clubs and beautiful spaces and events and stuff and I got to take four dances with me a manager a tour manager and a sound guys there's a big touring group and we all of us toured together for five years so a little family on the road and it was just awesome like we all still talk now and they're like oh what awesome days those we all have kids now so yeah did you have to be up really late like the dance world only starts at like 11:00 at night doesn't it yeah I mean you would end up sometimes doing corporate gigs with dance music so those were earlier it could be between 8 and 11 p.m. but yeah nightclub stuff could be between 11:00 and 2:00 a.m. or something and do you just adjust to that yeah you're always traveling anyway but we were sort of once you're working that late you're definitely staying overnight so there'd be the travel on the day of the show and then the next day coming home so that's like those that 48 hours is long I always um love the way you talk about your work because so many people think that if you're famous you just have all this money you don't need to work you're just famous and somehow that's an means to an end in itself yeah but for you it's it's work it's work you enjoy but that idea of you constantly have to keep things in the pipeline and keep things going yeah you're either working creating styling rehearsing editing I like to be across stuff so I guess I could do less if I wanted to but I like to be across it and know what's coming in what's going out so that tends to make a bigger workload the move from performing to judging in reality shows how did that happen started with Australia's Got Talent and looking back on the footage that was like we had amazing acts but the whole show was so low if I compared to what the shows are now I was it because it was one of the first sort of celebrity judging charlie thousand and six and it was Simon Cowell who else was on that initial so Australia's Got Talent it was me Tom Burlinson and red Symons were the judges on the Australian version first yes and then a guy called Rob Clark who works for psycho had come out to Australia to check on that show and he was whizzing all around the world and he went back to the UK and took footage of me and said you got to see Danny when I go on this show she's just so awesome in the judging seat and then they asked me in 2007 to start x-factor in the UK so yeah it happened really really fast and I had awesome people teaching me here in Australia how to do that job really well so well that you can enjoy it it took people quite a while to work out that those shows are actually about the judges not really about the contestants in many ways and what they don't always produce a mega star that injures so some some years it's just a year of that show and then whether it's you know bachelor or Dancing with the Stars or you know I'm a slow get me out of here or X Factor or whatever it's every few years is that breakout star yes a game Bastion yeah and you know they're they're real stars that probably would have happened anyway but sort of with that little you know a little lift into being seen by people really made it happen for them what sort of advice or instruction was given to you that that first time about what makes a good judge it has to be entertaining because sometimes it is about the judges there was no nastiness when I learnt to do that job in Australia that shows not about that but it's just it has to be entertaining and there's certain techniques of what's going to edit down properly and work so you've got to sort of be able to edit yourself by the by the time I had gone to x-factor even though I was learning a slight twist on it and it's a different job and and in a much different environment in the UK yeah because x-factor there as opposed to expect here is very different in what way it's it's just a juggernaut in the UK it's just it's massive and you're just everyone's just a tiny part of it and you know nobody ever knows what's going on so I kind of knew what I needed to do and they they recognized when I sat in the seat the I had to teach me about because this was just with a singing competition what bits of information they wanted me to give and then the mentoring thing I sort of took on on my own and created it because I did it differently from everyone else but they knew that I knew what was what they would need in the Edit so it's kind of like if you can be a writer and produce an article that's pretty tight and the editors not going to make many changes to it you know what sits on the page what needs to be there it makes it really easy and then people want to book you and then when did Sharon Osborne become a judge because that was just awful that whole she she was the main crew from the beginning of that show in the UK and that was the original show and I loved her on it I loved watching The Osbournes on MTV and I was just in awe of her walking onto the show how much of it was her trying to because I mean the story lines around the judges and there's always a fight and and there still are those on the on shows now and I often wonder how much of that's Confed how much of it's real how much of it is just to create a storyline we we didn't know what journalists were writing what editors had asked for what the producers were pumping out or saying as I say just you just didn't know what was going on clearly she was pretty unhappy and it seemed that that was directed at me and I had said to them before I started I'm like this show is awesome and everyone loves these three judges I'm it's gonna be just so awkward with me sitting there like nobody needs coming in fourth yeah nobody needs or wants another judge like why would you ask me to do this and they said because we a want to change it up but we want someone there who has perform so know what it feels like so you will speak very very differently to the contestants then they would or did so I was like okay get that the kind of knew it was gonna be be a tricky navigation of settling in but I thought it would all settle down I know you know it would have if you know if Sharon wasn't so upset by things but I honestly I don't know what people were feeding her and putting into her mind or saying about me or making I don't you know and I'll probably never know I was I didn't want her to be unhappy I was in awe of her yes I did from several directions because I think it was a whole machine of things working together whether they conspired I knew that they were working together I don't know how did you get off that show could you get off that show yes I almost retired early when I was just under too much pressure and I thought I'm unhappy everyone's unhappy this is just crap I just don't want to be here I'm like if there's a bad vibe I want to sort it out with people and move on and I felt like there's absolutely nothing I can do here to make this any better so I I better just leave now but then I ended up staying things did become easier but there was like there were a lot of conversations that took place with management and it's easy what if someone says you know just forget about it just go to work and just like you know let it just roll off you just wasn't it wasn't like that it wasn't that easy and yeah I stayed till 2010 and then I left the show so we had really come to a peak in ratings so it was almost 20 million people it was nearly half the country and I just felt and I've always gone with gut decisions I just felt like I don't think this is gonna stay here cuz I think this show is perhaps heading down a road of not what the audience wants I'm all about like getting out meeting people talking and just felt like what was being delivered was different than what they wanted and I didn't want to be a part of that so I left you know good energy like thank you that was incredible but I'm done yeah and I'm ready to move on so it was like amazing to be part of that peak of the show and you know then it was traveling around globally and lots and lots of different countries and the experience was tough but you know they say the things that don't kill you make you stronger but like I mean it's kind of like they also give you anxiety nothing nothing compares to that and I'm kind of equipped for a lot but I know I don't want to repeat that I'm very careful to choose my jobs and teams that I work with because I have not got time for it that's too short mmm that level of Fame when half the country's watching you on television I can't imagine also the tabloid culture in the UK it's different yeah can you explain what it's like to be that famous and to be I guess hunted and how how it can become quite surreal you've had some pretty surreal experiences yeah it's different lifestyle they're very much on guard and being chased and hunted you know with a price tag on your head is just awful the worst experience when I was so frightened was leaving somewhere at night getting in my car I had a very small SL case it's a two-seater and I got in my car and there was a pack of paparazzi and they all were laying down on my bonnet around like this and on top and it's pitch black and they're all doing flashes and I could see nothing but white spots I couldn't drive away because if I Drive over there forward they say you've heard us and then I'll be taken to court I could do nothing but just sit there and there's please stop and then I knew even once they stopped I couldn't drive off straightaway because I might kill someone there might be cyclists on the road cyclists said do not wear helmets do not have to wear helmets most of them don't have lights on and they don't have any reflective vests or anything like it's super scary driving in London once it starts to get dark and that was the scariest time that I ever had and I just thought this is horrible and this is before social media so had nowadays had someone been walking past with a phone with a camera in it and film them going yeah this is disgusting yeah and uploaded it but nothing ever happened I didn't now I didn't have a phone or anything with me I couldn't feel what it was like no I would love to film from inside what was going on so now that they're accountable for their behavior it's a different world is it a double-edged sword though because they're accountable for their behavior but also everybody's a paparazzi because everybody's got a camera in their hand what's that like do you find people start Isha Slee taking photos of you in public taking pictures or they'll be staring I find sometimes to when I see someone really famous and I you feel like you know them because you've seen them on TV so much and I'm trying not to see I'm trying not just different it's like a muster of languages all you can do is stare and you know so it feels just as weird if someone just pulls out their camera and takes photo and walks off or someone's like just staring at you for 20 minutes like what's worked yeah I mean you're famous you're outside that happens but the the the lengths that some of the paparazzi go to I have you know gone to is incredibly scary and I remember when Princess Diana died and I was coming home from a gig that night I was working up near Manchester late-night gig traveling down in the bass with the dancers and we had the radio on and it was like this has happened to Princess Diana and I just thought I just we cannot be hearing that right and I got home and my brother was in Australia working for Channel 9 News and I called him was a date home in Australia and I said is this is real I'm sitting in my apartment I've turned the TV on it looks like it's real but what is going on and the main thing that was coming out that night was you know a pack of paparazzi around the car ah MMH you could in the tunnel up to all sorts and yeah I was like there's nothing that they won't do so that really saddened me it's like what has to happen before people stop it are accountable for this kind of behavior like you once had a reporter asked you if you had AIDS or say that they were going to publish a story yeah no it would have been if it asked me they said we are printing tomorrow because we have on good authority that you have AIDS we live it in a bunch of flowers in an actual in an actual bunch of flowers there was a letter I got home and at the security desk they said there's a bunch of flowers here for you and I thought it was say and I still have that letter what did you do I I didn't know what it was like so this is happening it wasn't like it might it was like this this is gonna happen and here's our number so I I called my manager and I just I don't I don't understand this like what what do you how do you want to handle these I don't know what to do and she said well let me call them and she called them and said this is not fact so you better not run it and they said I don't know dude definitely is we're on good authority and she said well better than the person that you're talking about and I said oh yes no we are absolutely sure and she said well it's not a fact you can't run this and they said we are running it it's like the the time was ticking down to when it was going to print and again before social media no right of reply like once that was going to be printed it was going to be multiplied around the world within the next 24 hours and there'd be no way that I could stop it even if it wasn't true and so she called me back and she said they're running anyway so call them back again and just call back like three times and they're like no we like we know what we're doing and so I just I called my doctor have an amazing doctor and I didn't even say what was happening I just said you're in the surgery and he said yes and I said I'm coming now we'll be there in 15 minutes do not leave I have to see you right now he said okay so Troy I don't know how I drove there without having an accident like it's really hard talking about it and so I got there and explained the situation I said there's only one thing that I can think to do is that how quickly could you turn around a blood test because then they don't believe me and they're gonna run it cuz they're like oh if you deny it it must be true and if you don't deny it it must be true it's like you can't so he said he could turn around a blood test really quickly which he did and we had it delivered to the editor's desk and it was just put in front of the editor and it didn't obviously didn't run but like just sitting there I mean it's so tight blood for me anyway of the Chinese veins and it's always just such a pallava and like just like shaking and crying and hyperventilating trying to get this blood out and then I remember my manager calling me back and I was just like let me know when it hits the desk let me know but I still wasn't sure even though I have the results that they're not they're gonna say oh we didn't get it anytime I wouldn't put anything past them yeah so I was just like the next day was just absolutely horrific and within that time so I didn't know if they were still gonna run it calling my parents saying it's a little situation happening yeah just so that you know and calling my brother and my sister saying I don't know what's gonna happen and then you know my brother working in news it's like god knows what you're gonna be you know you know gonna arrive at work with tomorrow if they print this so it was very very difficult I'm the most happy person that social media is here in a part of my life and other people's lives and it's been a positive thing for me I've made friends through social media I've connected with so many incredible companies and charities and it's been nothing but positive because it's given you a voice yeah but just beyond that just like a really positive thing and it can be but now you know I've noticed a lot of celebrities when rubbish is written about them they'll just put out a Facebook update or an Instagram update saying this is just not true like ignore it it's rubbish and and I I mean that's so different now to how it used to be when you'd have to take legal action or could you respond to every single live it was written about you and piece of gossip when there was a retraction it was never written as speaker on the same part of the page which was not fair it's like if you're gonna go with that and as an a journalist you gonna put your name to that then be prepared to you know write in exactly the same space exactly the same size that what you wrote was rubbish and had and researched it properly what surprised you about becoming a mother I guess there's just so many things that people said that you like now I get it it's just that understanding of you'll never understand the love and you know how you're just always thinking about your child and caring for them and you know wanting to prepare a good life for them and the joy that little things that they do bring you but it's like someone could say that to you but until you experience it it's different so I think it was just the experience of it and loved being pregnant and you know just I miss you know having a little baby and yet all the different ages as he gets older and he's becoming more aware I mean obviously he's always been aware of your fame and he's aren't famous and how does that affect him and how do you explain that to him I try to and it's kind of like it's you keep him off social media becoming clear yeah because I know I don't even have a picture of him in my mind when I'm talking to you I don't think I've ever seen what he looks like except maybe when he was a tiny baby yeah I mean we were really hounded by paparazzi outside our house when he was little and there's lots of photos from that time but you have tried to keep him out of out of that and in a way there's a an agreement that you can have with British press that if as parents you don't publish any pictures of that child they legally have to pixelate the face of that child until trying to remember what age maybe I don't if it's 13 or 16 Australia we don't have that law but even just to protect him in the UK Chris and I signed a legal document and we delivered that to all the editors in London to say we really doing our best to keep him away from this so they have to pixelate the picture so if you see magazines there it's very different than when you see the shoe and the part you're part of the deal is that you don't publish photos of him yes so he says to me is like all my friends are uploading something on YouTube and their mommies put pictures of them on Instagram why don't you put pictures of me up so I explained that if I do it because my job is different from the mums that he's talking about that are uploading pictures if I do it it creates an industry and a job where I said you know the scary guys who chase us when we leave the front door that they're there every day and there's more of them all the time so just by not doing that keeps that at bay because there's a less of a price tag on a pixelated picture of a child than there is a regular photo so I I mean it would be brilliant if there was a bit more child protection in Australia it sure would yes so interesting and we don't support the paparazzi economy at Mamma Mia we don't buy any paparazzi photos for that reason because it encourages stalking of women and children hey it's so awesomely that you can like get a ton of stuff for free from celebrity grams and stuff and they you know they have all of the documents and the stories there with those pictures hey listen I know you've got to go but I also wanted to congratulate you on your petite range for targets this is not spawn con it's great it's such and from what I understand from speaking to the people at Target you are very involved it's not a vanity line it's not just your name you are all over it from the size of the coat hangers being given for to free for free to the customers because they're the right size coat hangers you can't hang all of it so yeah it's a fantastic range congratulation thank you five years with Target they've been incredible at allowing that collaborative process and everything that I that I'm using there I learnt it came up when I had my first range when I was like 17 years old it's funny you know came out and target on under the same umbrella but like you know if you want to be an actor and you go into a soap opera like there was a home away the best training like being part of that company is just been [Music] you

Channel: Mamamia

Views: 8,022

Rating: 4.8421054 out of 5

Keywords: danii minogue, young talent time, mia freedman, no filter, no filter podcast, dannii minogue, dannii minogue interview, the masked singer australia

Id: ERCpvZ5a088

Length: 54min 53sec (3293 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 29 2019