Kylie Minogue has been confirmed as the headline entertainment act for the 2026 AFL Grand Final at Melbourne’s MCG on September 26 — the first Australian artist to headline the event since 2021.
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The AFL announced the deal on Sunday, with Minogue describing it as a homecoming. “The AFL grand final at Melbourne’s one and only, forever iconic MCG? Yes please!” she said in a statement. “As a Melburnian, I’m so excited to be coming home for the biggest day in the Aussie sporting calendar.”
AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon confirmed the league had been chasing Minogue for some time.
“There is no better artist to headline the performance prior to our biggest game of the season,” Dillon said. “Our AFL team recently joined Kylie at the MCG for the grand final content shoot, and you could already feel the excitement for September building.”
Minogue is the first Australian to headline the grand final entertainment since a collection of local acts led the 2021 event at Optus Stadium in Perth, where the game was held due to COVID lockdowns in Melbourne. The league has leaned heavily on international acts in recent years — Snoop Dogg headlined in 2025, while KISS, Robbie Williams, Katy Perry and The Killers have all featured in the past decade.
Born and raised in Melbourne, Minogue is one of the most decorated pop artists in Australian and British chart history. She has scored 11 No. 1 albums on the U.K. Official Albums Chart — drawing level with David Bowie, Eminem and Rod Stewart — and became the first female artist to score No. 1 U.K. singles across four consecutive decades when she topped the chart at Christmas 2025.
In Australia, she holds eight ARIA No. 1 albums and is the country’s highest-selling female artist, with more than 80 million albums sold worldwide. She has won two Grammy Awards and four Brit Awards across a career spanning 17 studio albums.
In the U.S., Minogue hit the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 twice — with “The Loco-Motion” (No. 3, 1988) and “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” (No. 7, 2002) — and peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with Fever (2001). Her 2023 single “Padam Padam” became a global viral phenomenon, reaching the top 10 in the U.K. and cementing a commercial and cultural resurgence that has continued with Tension II (2024) and her 2025 Christmas chart-topper.
