I Kissed A Boy host Dannii Minogue: ‘You don’t think of yourself as a gay icon’

In her three decade career as a pop star she has played hits like All I Wanna Do, Who Do You Love Now and I Began to Wonder at gay clubs and Pride events across the world. To pop-loving gay men who grew up in the 90s and 00s, she and sister Kylie have long been considered gay icons.

However, she had “crazy doubts” about whether she was the right person to host. “Plus I wanted to know how the casting was happening and how the cast were going to be looked after. I didn’t want to be part of a reality show that was using people.”

Assured that was not going to be the case, she signed on as host of I Kissed A Boy. While filming the show, she also went further than most hosts to make sure the cast of gay men had the most positive experience possible.

“Whether I’m mentoring on The X Factor or here, I look after my contestants. When they leave the show, we have a one-on-one where they can ask me anything.”

‘Record companies didn’t want anyone to perform at gay clubs’

Though her pop career has led to some calling her a gay icon, Dannii is not entirely comfortable with calling herself that.

“I’ve heard Cher say ‘you don’t wake up thinking you’re a gay icon.’ You don’t think about yourself like that.”

However, Dannii has been performing for gay audiences since other artists were afraid to do so. In the 1990s, she was one of the first performers to play London club night G-A-Y.

“Record companies didn’t want anyone to perform at gay clubs at the time,” she says. According to Dannii, this was because record labels were worried that performing in LGBT spaces would make the press write stories speculating on performers’ sexualities. “You really were at the mercy of what a journalist was going to say about you, which could be completely fabricated.”

She adds that fellow artists both gay and straight were afraid of this at the time. “It was drilled into them by record companies and management that you can’t be gay, that will ruin your career.”

Dannii last performed at G-A-Y in 2015, by which time things had changed. “It became the place to promote your record. The crowd is pop music lovers, so it could make or break you.”

Asked when she noticed that she had a lot of gay fans, she says, “it’s when people come up and start recounting stories. ‘I met my partner when your song was playing in the club’ or ‘this album was the soundtrack to me getting through difficult times.’ It’s also spending time over the years being involved with people in the community and charities and stuff. You start to feel accepted by the community, which feels amazing.”

‘I Kissed A Boy is kicking the door open’

Just like Dannii’s G-A-Y appearance led to more pop stars playing gay pubs and clubs, she is hoping I Kissed A Boy will do the same for LGBT dating shows.

“This show is kicking the door open,” she says. “Hopefully allowing for a space for there to be lots of different programming for this community.”

She is proud to be the host of the UK’s first ever all-male gay dating show – and is prouder still of the cast who decided to be a part of it. “I said to the boys that they’re so brave to be part of this first show.”

Dannii herself has been on TV since the age of seven, when she began her career as a child actor on Australian soap operas. She knows what it is like to become very famous very young – and she tries to share these lessons every time she works with people finding fame for the first time.

She says this is what made her a success on The X Factor: “I genuinely wanted it [success] for them, and I think we had a lot of success because of that. It wasn’t just a job I turned up and left. I put in a lot of extra time with them.”

It also gave her a real appreciation for the I Kissed A Boy boys. “Anyone being on TV and baring their soul about who they are, it’s intense. And I think they were as open as you can be.”

This openness extended to the one-on-one chats she had with the cast members after they were eliminated. “I loved getting extra time with them. They could ask me whatever they wanted, whether it’s fun or super helpful.

“It was really nice to see them be able to be calm with me in that moment.”

I Kissed A Boy airs Sundays and Mondays on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer.