SINCE arriving in Neighbours as the feisty and outspoken Charlene in 1986, Kylie Minogue has spent more than three decades on screens, stages and red carpets.

The pop star and actress, who turns 50 on Monday, has enjoyed several reinventions since her debut on the Australian soap as a fresh-faced high-school graduate.

As well as celebrating her milestone birthday in 2018, Minogue has topped the UK album charts and will embark on a string of UK and Ireland dates this autumn.

The Australian, who has called London home since 2011, said her latest album, Golden, was as much about looking to the future as reflecting on the past.

Asked earlier this year what she thought of turning 50, Minogue said: “I’m trying to think of a way to say it without swearing.”

The princess of pop first found success as a singer in the late eighties when she began to shed her innocent image.

Her debut album, Kylie, also topped the UK charts, as did Enjoy Yourself (1989), Fever (2001) and Aphrodite (2010), and a 1992 Greatest Hits compilation album.

Kylie Ann Minogue was born on May 28 1968, in Melbourne, Australia, to her Welsh mother, Carol Ann.

She released her debut single, a cover of Little Eva’s The Loco-Motion, in Australia in 1987 and has gone on to sell more than 68 million records around the world.

From dueting with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on Where The Wild Roses Grow in 1995 to her smash-hit Can’t Get You Out Of My Head in 2001, which reached number one in about 40 countries, Minogue has never been confined to a genre.

During the nineties she went to great lengths to distance herself from the created image of soap star-turned-pop puppet.

The duet with Nick Cave, taken from his 1996 album Murder Ballads, is often cited among her career-best moments, and boosted her credibility with those music fans who may have written her off beforehand.

The album that followed that unlikely about-face, Impossible Princess, further cemented her position as a versatile artist, and saw collaborations with the likes of Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield, and dabbled with techno, indie and jazz.

Fever – containing Can’t Get You Out Of My Head – marked another reinvention and the singer has previously said it was then that she began to really feel self-confident.

Six albums have followed since then, with this year’s Golden, recorded predominantly in Nashville, Tennessee, taking a country twist.

And so how will the star celebrate her big 50? She revealed earlier this year the occasion may call for a “big celebration” with some famous friends sure to be in attendance.