Dannii Minogue: My secret late night London motorbike rides
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While Dannii Minogue may be known for being a glamorous TV star and singer, while she lived in London she actually became a bit of a biker.
Speaking on White Wine Question Time, the Aussie star revealed that she got her motorbike licence while living in the UK so she could ride around the city late at night.
“I learned to ride in London,” she told podcast host Kate Thornton.
“I did a week’s course, and you got the bike for the week. And my favourite thing was to get the motorbike and go out late at night and ride where you could actually see more than five metres ahead of you — you weren't you know, swallowed up with traffic — and ride around Buckingham Palace and go down Regent Street and and just ride all around on my own.”
Listen: Dannii talks about why her parents have difficulty telling her and sister Kylie apart
While Minogue, who turns 50 this year, said it was super safe because you “could clearly see the potholes coming up”, she said the experience was really liberating.
“It was freeing,” she exclaimed. “Just to see the beauty of London because there's normally so much traffic and you know, people moving about.”
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She continued, likening her late-night rides to the lockdown situation now: “I'm sure anybody who's moving about now… You know the roads are pretty empty and you suddenly see things that you haven't seen before and wildlife and animals have you know returned to the city like the amount of birds is so good!”
The singer lived in London for 22 years before relocating back home to Melbourne, Australia but there are still a few places that are special to her – Battersea Park, which she lived closed to, and her favourite restaurant.
She told Thornton: “One of my favourite places is Cheyne Walk Brasserie [now called No. Fifty Cheyne]. Beautiful food, very, like, tucked away. Like the first time I tried to find it, I couldn't find it, which is kind of good! It's just, you know, very local.”
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Even though she hasn’t been able to visit the UK since the pandemic began, when she’s able to come back, her first stop will obviously be a visit to big sister Kylie, who has lived in the UK since the 1990s.
“My sister's there so I would always have a catch up with my sister,” she said.
“Either I go to her house, or we have little places that we go in London that we love that are just really private.”
Another ex-pat friend in the UK is author Kathy Lette, who Minogue has been friends with for many years.
“I'll either go and see her at the family home as I'm really good friends with her kids, or she will come and meet me at the Savoy where she was writer in residence,” she said.
“And we will sit at the bar there and have a cocktail that's named after her, of course, and just be fabulous and have fun!”
Danni Minogue’s Fashion and Jewellery range for petite women is available now exclusively at QVC UK.
Hear Dannii Minogue talk about whey she felt compelled to create her new petite clothing range on the latest episode of White Wine Question. Listen now on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.