Cancer changed me, Kylie says

Kylie Minogue says cancer changed her mentally and physically and she is still dealing with the effects almost five years on.

Minogue was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 and underwent chemotherapy. She is now approaching the five-year all clear date.

But the 42-year-old says the disease changed her in many ways.

"My face has gone through a lot of changes," Minogue told Britain's Sunday Times magazine.

"If you look back before I was ill, there was nothing of me.

"I didn't realise it at the time, but in a way I looked much older than I do now.

"All of me is just fleshier now, but my face changed.

"It filled out, it puffed up with the drugs. It's not puffed now, but then it was because of the chemotherapy and steroids."

Minogue is still on medication but will go off it when she has been cancer-free for five years.

She says taking the drugs has meant worrying about her weight for the first time in her life.

"I still take medication, and there are a lot of women who stop taking the medication because they just can't stand the side effects," she said.

"You definitely put on weight.

"Weight was never an issue for me. Before, I could just eat anything."

The Australian singer, who calls London home these days, says she has also learnt to be easier on herself and not get too stressed.

The medication makes her tired but she tries to stay positive.

"I'm here, and that's what I have to remember when I start to get down about it," she said.

Minogue released her new single, All The Lovers, last week and it is getting airplay around the world.

In the accompanying video the former Neighbours star shows off a svelte figure in a shredded white shirt with a black bra and underwear.

She says the original plan was to wear long flowing dresses, but the director had other ideas.

"I was not expecting to be wearing that kind of outfit ever again," she said.

"But when I got there, the director said: 'I think of you and I think hot pants'."

Photos of Minogue in the revealing outfit made the front page of newspapers in the UK.

"Now it gets written about because I'm in that age group - 'She's in her 40s and she's still got it'," she said.

"I'm in that age range where you're spoken about like that, and I'm like, 'Shut up, because at some point it won't be'."

Minogue will release her new album, Aphrodite, on July 5 and is planning on touring again next year.

She says it feels like the older she gets, the better she is at what she does.

"If I didn't tour again I would think, 'Oh no, I have finally just found my stride'," she said.

"I'll be in the old people's home trying to do a high kick down the corridor."