SHE is the pop princess who has reinvented herself almost as many times as Madonna - but who rarely offers a glimmer of the real woman behind her public persona.

Today, however, the Sunday Mirror unveils an intimate account of the life and loves of Kylie Minogue through her best friend and fashion mentor William Baker.

He reveals the painful loneliness which stalks the private Kylie and tells how the raunchy singer desperately wants to find Mr Right, settle down and start a family.

He speaks of Kylie's heartbreak at her failed relationship with model James Gooding and reveals how she was wooed by pop hunk Robbie Williams - but turned him down.

William also tells of Kylie's sexual awakening at the hands of INXS heart-throb Michael Hutchence and reveals the secrets behind her celebrated bum and dazzling wardrobe.

William and Kylie met by chance in London eight years ago at fashion guru Vivienne Westwood's boutique on Conduit Street, where he was an eager sales assistant and Kylie was a valued celebrity customer.

Stunned to meet one of his television idols face-to-face, starstruck William bombarded former Neighbours star Kylie with questions and talked her into going for a coffee. After discovering that they shared similar ideas about music and fashion, phone numbers were swapped and an extraordinary bond was born. Now William and Kylie have written a book which charts Kylie's chameleon-like transformation from curly-haired teenage soap actress to thirtysomething pop pin-up - via a hundred image changes along the way.

Talking about Kylie in a basement bar a few steps from his Central London flat, William says: "I still can't believe I had the cheek to ask her for a coffee and she agreed to come."

Cheshire-born William, who moved to London as a student, says: "I was a boy from the sticks and she was an established pop star.

"But we hit it off straightaway and that was that.

"I suppose I just bombarded her with ideas. I think she liked my directness.

"Within a few weeks I was working on a photo-shoot with her and since then it has just gone from strength to strength."

William, now Kylie's creative director, has been a key figure in her pop comeback in the last two years and has been as thrilled as Kylie by the success of hits like Can't Get You Out Of My Head.

But he has told in detail for the first time how Kylie was knocked for six by her split earlier this year from model James - and how she now frets that she may never get the chance to start a family.

In a unique insight into Kylie's world, he says: "She was heartbroken it didn't work out.

"She really thought he was the one, the man she could spend the rest of her life with and have kids with.

"She was absolutely gutted. She was sitting round saying, 'Oh God, another one bites the dust.

What have I done wrong this time? Another relationship has ended and still no ring, no big church wedding'.

"She cries about it, she cries a lot. She blames herself for it all, not James, because it all went wrong when her career took off again."

William told how Kylie met James before her comeback single Spinning Around two years ago, her first No.1 after years in the pop wilderness.

"When they started she was Kylie Minogue who used to be famous.

"Then all of a sudden she was more famous than ever before.

"Suddenly, she was an international megastar and he just hated all the attention that came with it.

"If Kylie's career hadn't taken off again she would still be with James - and that's the irony of it."

William says: "She's not sitting around saying the fact she hasn't got a husband is the price of her fame.

"She's just fed up that she hasn't met the right person yet. She doesn't see it as a choice between career and being settled down. When the right guy does come along she is still sure she'll find a way of doing both.

"On the last tour, one of the songs Kylie did was The Crying Game - and that was the perfect song for her.

"I have known Kylie for nine years and that line, 'I know all there is to know about the crying game', really goes to the core.

"She does know all there is to know about it. She's had boyfriends come and go. She's not had an easy time."

William adds: "Kylie is 34 and her biological clock is ticking. She knows she hasn't got forever to have kids and she's been doing a lot of soul-searching.

"When you are getting older and a relationship goes wrong, it throws up a lot of questions about what you want from life.

"There is a deep loneliness in Kylie. She has a deep longing for what her mum and dad have.

"They have been married for years, have three kids and are an incredibly close unit. The

biggest miracle and surprise to her in life is that her mum and dad are still together, she thinks that's an amazing thing and that is what she aspires to.

"Kylie would love to have kids and a family but the more famous you become the less time you have and the harder it is.

"She says that to have a family would be her biggest achievement but she can't force it to happen.

"Behind Kylie's smiling public image, there is an inherent sadness about her. There's a vulnerability there and that's one of the reasons people warm to her.

"She loved James to bits and he loved her, but the tragedy was that it just wasn't working. What could she do? How long do you keep trying to make it work when it won't? How long do you sit round trying to flog a dead horse?

"Kylie loved James because he was a normal lad who met her when she wasn't a megastar. He grounded her. He made her feel not famous."

James was pilloried for two-timing Kylie with a string of other women including actress Davinia Taylor.

But William insists James is not a love rat - and says there is no animosity between the former lovers.

"James was portrayed as having done the dirty on her and having gone out with other people while he was with her.

"Kylie feels really bad that James was exposed to all this publicity and that everyone was slagging him off.

"The poor bloke couldn't even go into his local chip shop without people giving him stick for mucking Kylie about.

"But, to be honest, him and Kylie were so on-off all the time that I don't think he was cheating on her.

"When he was seeing other people that would have been because they weren't together at that point.

"They were always splitting up and getting back together again, which is what people on the outside didn't realise. He has become her friend. They went away as friends on holiday to Bali in the summer and they came back as friends. James is just a normal 26-year-old bloke who had a girlfriend who happened to be famous.

"When Kylie was crap, he happily told her and she loved his honesty."

William also reveals how he was instrumental in getting the pair together in the first place: "Kylie first met him in LA and then came back to London. She didn't have his number but wanted to see him again.

"I knew him as a model from castings I had been to and Kylie told me to tell him to give her a ring if I saw him.

"Then I was walking down the street in Soho one day, bumped into him, took his mobile number and gave it to her."

Kylie was with James at his grandmother's house having lunch on the day she heard that Spinning Around had gone to Number One ...a success which was to ultimately sound the death-knell for the relationship.

William says: "Kylie phoned to tell me the good news - then went back to eating her chicken. That's Kylie all over."

Since the split, Kylie has become a devotee of TV's Sex And The City, which charts the agonised love lives of four sassy, wealthy 30- something New Yorkers.

The picture of superstar Kylie slumped on the sofa with the remote control in her hand is about as far removed from her sexy, sultry current image as it is possible to get.

But William says: "She's a bit obsessed with that show. After what Kylie has been through, she can obviously relate to the programme.

"If you think about it, Carrie Bradshaw's character (who is preoccupied with shoes and has a disastrous love life) is pretty like Kylie - except that Kylie doesn't smoke.

"But she is lonely. You can count her close friends on the fingers of one hand.

"She doesn't have a large group of close friends she can rely on. She is quite isolated.

"Her family are in Australia. Her friend Kat (Katerina Jebb, her former flatmate) has got married and now lives in Paris.

"Another old flatmate has moved to LA - and she hasn't made any new friends because she has been working all the time."

William says Kylie's inner circle in London, her adopted home city, are himself, her music adviser Steve Anderson and Patrick Cox, the shoe designer.

It certainly doesn't include pop heart-throb Robbie Williams - who William says longed to seduce Kylie but was too tongue-tied to make a move.