Kylie Minogue honoured with Brit Awards global icon gong

After archiving success throughout her nearly 40-year music career, Kylie Minogue has earned the Brits global icon title.

Since breaking through in the late 1980s, the 55-year-old Australia pop superstar has sold more than 80 million records worldwide and became the first female artist to score a number one album in five consecutive decades in the UK.

Taking to the stage at the O2 Arena on Saturday, she first paid tribute to biggest winner of the night, saying: “I’m just going to be sobbing with Raye, Raye you did that.”

Raye won six Brits – meaning she beat the record for the highest number of wins in one award year.

Minogue also said that “there’s a part of me that’s the 14-year-old girl in the room dreaming of making music” and told music students that she feels their “promise” as well.

“I love you, and I will always love you, you have my heart,” she added.

The singer then performed a medley of her hit songs with three separate costume reveals.

In a red latex style dress, echoing the music video for Padam Padam, she performed that dance-pop hit before going into a black and white outfit for Can’t Get You Out Of My Head and finishing in an all-white ensemble for Love At First Sight.

Minogue first made a name for her herself on Australian soap opera Neighbours, where she played Charlene Mitchell.

She starred opposite actor Jason Donovan, who played Scott Robinson, and their characters fell in love and ultimately married each other.

Minogue later turned her hand to the world of music, releasing her debut studio album, titled Kylie, in 1988.

It peaked at number one in the UK charts and its catchy pop track I Should Be So Lucky also landed in the top spot of the singles chart.

Her next chart-topping UK hit came in the form of a duet with Donovan called Especially For You from his debut album Ten Good Reasons.

Across her career, the Melbourne-born pop star has had seven UK number one singles, including Spinning Around and Can’t Get You Out Of My Head.

In 2005, the singer had to pull out of a Glastonbury headline slot following a breast cancer diagnosis.

She finally dazzled on the festival’s main Pyramid Stage in 2019, where she sang a host of hits from her back catalogue.

Last July, Minogue announced her first Las Vegas residency, following in the footsteps of fellow female music titans like Adele and Celine Dion.

The Australian star proved she still had more to offer fans last year when she released her 16th studio album, the electro-dance infused Tension.

Led by the earworm that was Padam Padam, which went viral on TikTok, the album became her ninth number one record.

The album is said to be a “blend of personal reflection, club abandon and melancholic high”.

Last month, Padam Padam won best pop dance recording at the Grammy Awards, more than 20 years on from when Minogue picked up the best dance record gong for Come Into My World, which featured on her 2001 album Fever.

In November, she became the first headliner for nightclub Voltaire, a new venue at The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas.

The superstar then took to the Royal Albert Hall in London in late 2023 for An Audience With Kylie, which paid tribute to her music career and included questions from the audience.

After Madonna and Taylor Swift, Minogue is the female solo artist with the third highest amount of UK chart-topping records.