Here's a bit of pop trivia to make you feel old: a couple of months ago Kylie Minogue became the first woman to top the UK album chart across five decades. Want to feel even older? It's 34 years since Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan walked down the aisle (fictionally, at least, in Neighbours). She was a dreamy vision in virginal baby's breath and flammable-looking lace; he, dashing of blond mullet, captured the hearts and minds of a generation of romantics.
Which goes some way towards explaining why Kylie Minogue became our version of Poor Jen. By Poor Jen, I of course mean Poor Jennifer Aniston, who, despite a fairly metronomic succession of gorgeous and young lovers, always seemed fated to a dreary narrative, that of the lonely, perennially rejected spinster. (Aniston has put that perception right: “First, with all due respect, I’m not heartbroken. And, second, those are reckless assumptions. No one knows what’s going on behind closed doors.”)
Kylie doesn't play the fame game quite as much as the press might like. She doesn't pack on the PDAs on Instagram or blather to the glossies about her romances
Anyway, so too it went with poor Kylie. Like most women, she had a number of relationships as a serial monogamist. (Perhaps not like most women, each paramour was more Adonis-like than the last: besides Donovan, her boyfriends have included Michael Hutchence, Lenny Kravitz and Olivier Martinez.) Certain newspapers are inclined to list her exes in a neat timeline; if the dates are to be believed, Minogue hasn’t actually been single since 2000.
With the demise/natural end/delete as appropriate of each relationship, the press seemed to cluck and sigh like an aunt desperate for an opportunity to pull out the spendy fascinator she bought at Debenhams back in 2005. “Why is Kylie so unlucky in love?” the press would crow, strangled with faux-concern, seemingly unable to get their heads around the fact that the nation’s sweetheart, the quintessential girl next door, couldn’t land herself a keeper.
In case you’re wondering where this came from, the truth is that Kylie doesn’t play the fame game quite as much as the press might like. She doesn’t pack on the PDAs on Instagram or blather to the glossies about her romances, leaving the tabloids with no story to tell, ergo no choice but to speculate about just why she is so damned secretive about her personal life.
Yet it seems like the days of the Kylie-as-a-pitiable-singleton narrative are numbered. The actor Billie Piper let the cat out of the bag earlier this month by referring to Kylie's latest partner, Paul Solomons, as her fiance. And this week the Daily Mail has reported that Kylie and Solomons, who is 46, from Wales, and creative director of GQ, are planning a low-key wedding in her native Melbourne – although, according to Woman's Day magazine, what was originally a low-key affair has "snowballed" into something more extravagant. "She's totally caught up in the moment," a source told the Australian magazine.
To which the only reasonable reaction is, well, why not? If Kylie Minogue wants an enormous wedding and a party with all the trimmings, who would begrudge the 52-year-old that? Kylie’s wholehearted festivities can finally put to bed the outmoded conceit of older brides preferring to opt for a sedate and modest celebration.
Either way, Kylie’s nuptials will officially bring down the curtain on the Poor Kylie chapter. In the usual run of things, “maybe baby” reports often follow. Perhaps, given her age, Kylie will be spared that. Although, when it comes to certain corners of the media, it certainly won’t be for want of trying.
