Dannii Minogue reveals heartbreaking reason she's looking forward to turning 50
While many people dread upcoming birthdays, Dannii Minogue has insisted she can't wait to turn 50 years old this October.
Speaking to the Mail on Sunday's You magazine about reaching half a century, the Australian pop star and actress admitted: "I’m always ageing myself up – I might be 49, but in my head I’m already mentally turning 50.
"I was always like this. I could never wait for the next birthday."
However, the mother-of-one has a heartbreaking reason for being glad to get older.
Minogue said: "Each year when I have a birthday I think about when my sister was very sick, and going through cancer. The doctors said we don’t know if she’s going to get through this. She’s going to have all the treatments day by day, but..."
She added: "So if anyone says, 'Ugh, I’m getting old', I tell them, 'Yeah – the lucky ones do. And it’s awesome and you’ve got to enjoy it.'”
Her sister Kylie, 52, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 – undergoing lumpectomy and chemotherapy – before being declared cancer-free in 2006.
In the same interview, Minogue – who appeared as a judge on The X Factor from 2007 to 2010 – shared how she was frequently compared to her sister after she first moved to London in the 1990s.
The former Home And Away star said: "I was definitely pitted against my sister: 'She’s thin and perfect and you’re not, you’re fat and...' – I’ve had every word said to me. It was difficult."
It comes after her older sibling herself opened about her experience of cancer, aged 36, in an interview last year.
Minogue was diagnosed in the middle of her Showgirl tour, and said her life had to be put “on hold”.
Discussing the impact last April, the singer told WHO magazine: “It’s always such a difficult question to answer with a neat sentence, but cancer changed many things forever, and some things didn’t change at all.”
She added: "My view of the world was different, my destination, for the most part, was the same."
