With a pixie-styled cropped haircut and a rueful smile, Kylie Minogue, the Australian singer, has spoken for the first time about the shock of being told she had breast cancer.

She said: "The moment my doctor told me, I went silent. My mum and dad were with me. Then we all fell to pieces."

A tearful Kylie during her first interview since undergoing cancer treatment

The singer's immediate thought, she said, was to fly away. "I was saying, 'No dad, I'm getting on a plane'. He said, 'No, you're not getting on a plane. You'll sit down'."

The former Neighbours actress was interviewed by Cat Deeley for Sky television. The interview will be broadcast on July 16 along with extracts from a video diary, which Minogue kept of her year-long treatment, during which she endured a partial mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Minogue, 38, in an excerpt from the interview, looked the confident and perky star of old, a far cry from the frightened, shuffling figure seen entering the apartment of her fianc¨¦, Olivier Martinez, the French actor, during chemotherapy.

In another interview with an Australian newspaper, she spoke of "the long, hard road" to conquering her illness. She said she was anxious "to get back into the swing of things".

She is in "full remission", according to her sister Dannii and the world tour she had to cut short in May last year is scheduled for November, along with a new album being recorded in Paris.