Media Cancels Non-Existent Kylie Tour

Some U.K. tabloids were left red-faced after mistakenly saying Kylie Minogue’s 2008 world tour was canceled because it could be bad for her health.

The Daily Mail, the Sun and Daily Telegraph ran stories saying she’d pulled the dates following doctor advice that she should take time off to complete her recovery from cancer. The news certainly puzzled her agent, Dave Chumbley of Primary Talent, as he hadn’t booked any dates and didn’t even have a tour plan confirmed.

"Trust the gutter press or trust the agent?" he wrote in reply to some of the e-mails after his inbox started filling up. "I had a bunch of promoters from all over the place asking if it was true she wasn’t touring, or asking why I hadn’t let them know that I was booking dates," he told Pollstar.

"It’s crazy for the papers to quote her doctors because we all know doctors are bound by the Hippocratic Oath and wouldn’t discuss a patient’s condition with reporters," he added.

Whether the papers were misinformed or whether they were just following that old maxim about never letting the truth get in the way of a good story, the Mail at least was quick to print a retraction.

"We [The London Daily Mail] reported yesterday that Kylie Minogue had

cancelled a world tour on the orders of her doctor. In fact, Ms. Minogue had not announced any tour dates, nor had she been advised that a tour would be detrimental to her health," it said in a November 6 apology, 24 hours after it ran the original story.

"We now accept that Ms. Minogue was wrongly quoted. We are happy to set the record straight."

Although some stories on the tabloids’ pop pages may occasionally be a little lacking in factual accuracy but are seldom questioned as long as the act is in the headlines, any piece casting doubts over Minogue’s fitness to tour could conceivably damage her career.

The stories could lead promoters to be concerned that she may have to cancel again, as she did with the Australian leg of her "Showgirl" tour after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005. She has since returned to the live circuit and fulfilled those engagements and played U.K. shows at the beginning of this year.