Ireland’s gay PM Leo Varadkar wrote a gushing fan letter to Kylie Minogue
Image: Image: @tiernanbrady / Twitter.
Ireland’s Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s 2018 fan letter to Kylie Minogue asking to meet her has been revealed following a reported two attempts to prevent its release.
Varadkar, Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister and the fourth openly gay world leader, wrote a letter to Australia’s pop princess last year in advance of her scheduled Dublin concert on October 7, 2018.
But Minogue had to reschedule the gig due to throat infection, delaying the Taoiseach’s chance to meet his pop idol.
The letter was released under a freedom of information request, and written on the official Office of the Taoiseach letterhead.
“Dear Kylie,” Varadkar wrote. “Just wanted to drop you a short note in advance of the concert in Dublin. I am really looking forward to it.
“Am a huge fan! I understand you are staying in the Merrion Hotel which is just across the street from my office in Government Buildings.
“If you like, I’d love to welcome you to Ireland personally,” Varadkar wrote.
Amusingly, Varadkar signed the letter and wrote “Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister)” below, in case Kylie didn’t quite understand who he was.
According to The Mail on Sunday, Minogue called Varadkar to apologise for the cancelled concert.
Varadkar later attended her rescheduled show in December, posing alongside friends next to our Kylie.
Marriage equality campaigner Tiernan Brady posted the photo on Twitter at the time alongside the caption, “6 gay teenagers meet the girl from Neighbours!”
6 gay teenagers meet the girl from Neighbours! @kylieminogue #Dublin pic.twitter.com/duRFrM7nDN
— Tiernan Brady (@Tiernanbrady) December 3, 2018
Opposition politicians have used the letter’s publication as a chance to criticise Varadkar, with Labour politician Aodhán Ó Ríordáin saying at a time when the “news is full of debate about homelessness and educational inequality…this is from our Taoiseach”.
Lorraine Clifford-Lee, a senator for the republican Fianna Fáil party, said the Taoiseach should be “worrying less about your Kylie concert and more about the desperate housing situation in this country”.
It’s not the only controversy stirred up by Varadkar’s Kylie fandom; at the time, the Irish PM was forced to deny that his meal at the concert was paid for after a user on social media suggested he has received a free dinner.
— Liam Stack (@liamstack) March 31, 2019
Varadkar was elected in May 2017, and has since come under fire from some within the LGBTI community in Ireland over his right-wing politics, including opposing access to abortion and waging a campaign against “welfare cheats”.
He is also the youngest person and the first person of Asian descent to hold the office of Taoiseach.
