Kylie Minogue lifts lid on explosive relationship with Michael Hutchence filled with sex and his drug-taking
The Aussie star, 50, says she felt 'very safe' with the troubled rocker who ultimately took his own life
AS one of the last great rock gods, INXS frontman Michael Hutchence devoured drugs and bedded some of the planet’s sexiest women.
And no woman was more famous, or surprising, than then pop starlet Kylie Minogue — who has now lifted the lid on their remarkable relationship in an explosive documentary.
She reveals how their whirlwind romance from 1989 to 1991 transformed her from innocent pop princess to a sexed-up diva, confessing how he was “a dark bad boy and I was the pure good girl”.
The film, Mystify: Michael Hutchence — which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York last week — also sees model Helena Christensen reveal how the troubled rocker experienced extreme highs and lows before his suicide at 37.
Kylie, 50, tells filmmakers: “Sex, love, food, drugs, music, travel, books, you name it, he wanted to experience it.
“As his partner I got to experience a lot of that as well. If you’re a sensual being, all of your senses need stimulation. He definitely awakened my desire for things in my world.”
It was with Michael that Kylie is believed to have joined the mile high club under a blanket on a Qantas flight.
Australia’s then Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, is said to have witnessed it while sitting nearby.
A decade in the making, the film includes Kylie’s own intimate footage of the couple.
In one scene she wears nothing but a towel and in another she suggestively lifts her top in public to reveal her midriff.
But despite their intense chemistry, it always seemed an unlikely union.
He was the wild frontman of INXS, with hits including Suicide Blonde and Need You Tonight.
She was the squeaky clean soap star turned pop singer who stormed the charts with single I Should Be So Lucky.
She first met fellow Aussie Michael when she went to an INXS gig in their native Australia and was invited back to his hotel after.
Kylie reveals how she instantly felt “very safe with him, I felt protected”.
And from the moment they started dating, she was willing to try new things with him.
She says: “He had insatiable curiosity, all the good things in life and some the bad.
“He opened up a whole new world for me. A lot of it was based around pleasure, let’s face it. It felt loving, yet sad, but was probably doomed.”
By 1991 their relationship was on the skids, and Kylie flew from Japan to New York to end things — even though she still can not say exactly why the split happened.
She adds: “He was on all fours on the floor crying. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know what was happening. I just know he was a broken man.
“I’d never seen any man like that before. I left pretty confounded and destroyed and knew that was it.”
An emotional Kylie says she was just as devastated. She reveals: “He broke my heart. I have to confess that the hurt stayed for quite a long time.” Shortly after the split, Michael started a relationship with Danish supermodel Helena Christensen, now 50.
It was with her while in Denmark in 1992 that he was punched to the ground by a taxi driver after refusing to get out of his path. It was a life-changing trauma.
Michael suffered brain damage and a fractured skull, but initially refused to have treatment.
Instead, he spent a month lying in the dark in Helena’s apartment “throwing up blood and pushing away all food”.
As a result he lost his sense of smell and taste and started to become “dark and angry”, according to Helena.
Many believe this was the trigger for subsequent bouts of depression. Speaking in depth for the first time about the incident, Helena says: “He was unconscious and there was blood coming out of his mouth and ear. I thought he was dead.
“We got to the hospital and he woke up and was aggressive. They were trying to make him stay but he was physically pushing them away.”
The couple split in 1995, months after his infamous interview with Paula Yates on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast.
She was married to Bob Geldof, with whom she had three children. But the flirty and giggly interview marked the start of a devastating affair.
In May 1996 Paula, then 36, divorced Geldof. Two months later she gave birth to Michael’s daughter, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily.
The film describes how Michael was riddled with guilt because his own parents, make-up artists Patricia and businessman Kelland, divorced when he was a teenager.
His mother took him to start a new life in California but left behind younger brother Rhett, whose life went on a downward spiral and he slipped into drug addiction.
Now he was inflicting similar pain on another family.
One of Paula’s closest friends, Belinda Brewin, tells filmmakers: “He was witnessing the break-up of a family that he was responsible for, which had a deep impact because of his own upbringing.
“I don’t think he could forgive himself for what he had done.”
The media backlash saw Michael, who was used to being adored, being viewed as a homewrecker.
At the same time, the success of INXS was in decline.
The documentary recalls how Michael was devastated when he presented Oasis with a Brit Award in 1996 and Noel Gallagher said: “Why is a has-been presenting to the gonna-bes?”
Meanwhile, he and Paula were taking an excessive amount of drugs and his mental health was deteriorating.
In 1997 he embarked on INXS’s 20th anniversary world tour to promote the release of their tenth album, Elegantly Wasted.
While in Australia he begged Paula to bring daughter Tiger to see him along with her other three children. But Bob Geldof blocked the request.
In the documentary Michael’s manager, Martha Troup, tells how he left her desperate voicemails.
She says: “He called me, he was extremely upset and confused that the kids weren’t coming to Australia. But it was more than that.
“He was really confused about where he wanted to be in life. He was just really angry.
He said, ‘Martha, I don’t give a s**t any more’. When I got home I heard a difference voice, ‘Marv, Marv, I need you’. So desperate.”
Lifelong friend and childhood sweetheart Michele Bennett was the last person Michael was known to have spoken to. In the documentary, she says: “He called, he said he needed to see me, he said everything’s f****d up.
“He would start crying. He sounded so exhausted and totally depleted in the most extreme way.”
Twenty minutes after that call on the morning of November 22, 1997, she arrived at his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Sydney.
When he did not answer the door she assumed he had fallen to sleep.
Hours later he was found dead in the hotel room
A post-mortem examination found alcohol, cocaine, codeine, Prozac, Valium and other prescribed sleeping pills in his blood and urine.
At Michael’s funeral, his casket was carried by brother Rhett and members of INXS to the sound of their hit Never Tear Us Apart.
Both Kylie and Paula attended. While Kylie kept her head bowed in solemn contemplation, it is said that Paula popped a gram of cocaine into Michael’s pocket before he was taken for cremation.
Paula died three years later, aged 41, from an accidental heroin overdose at her London home.
It was another tragic twist in the tale of Michael’s life, laid bare in the documentary.
As with Michael Jackson abuse documentary Finding Neverland, Mystify was shown in the US first and will air in the UK later.
It will be in Australian cinemas on July 4 before being shown on BBC2 later this year.
Writer and director Richard Lowenstein, who worked on some of INXS’s early videos, is sorry the film can not show all sides of Michael’s personality with original footage.
He said: “There’s images of him, but they don’t seem to portray the person I knew, the humble shy person who would turn into a rock star on stage.
“A lot of people put Michael into this sort of Jim Morrison rock star cliché but his life was so different
“Yes he had a string of high-profile girlfriends but he was actually quite serious about them.”
And Richard regrets he could not include more interview footage with the man himself in his film.
He added: “Instead of just filming him doing music videos, I wish I’d sat him down and said, ‘Michael, tell us about your life’.”
Now Richard’s film will have to do that for us instead.
TRAGEDY TIMELINE
January 22, 1960: Michael Kelland John Hutchence born in Sydney.
1972: Starts high school and meets future INXS bandmate Andrew Farriss.
1976: Parents split. Goes to live with mum in California.
1977: Returns to Oz and joins The Farriss Brothers, the band that would become INXS.
1979: After briefly changing their name to The Vegetables, the band was renamed INXS.
1980: Release first single Simple Simon, followed by self-titled debut album.
1986: Michael stars in Australian feature film Dogs In Space, about the punk scene.
1987: INXS release sixth studio album, Kick, which includes their best-known hits and sells 20million copies worldwide.
1989: Michael starts relationship with Kylie Minogue.
1990: Makes second film, horror movie Frankenstein Unbound, with John Hurt.
1991: Headlines Wembley Stadium with INXS in front of 72,000 fans. Starts dating Helena Christensen.
1992: Punched by taxi driver, suffering long-lasting injuries
1995: Officially starts relationship with Paula Yates.
1996: Becomes a dad to Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lil.
November 22, 1997: Takes own life in Sydney hotel room.