Nick Cave apologises to Minogue, Lavigne

Nick Cave has offered a public apology to Kylie Minogue and Avril Lavigne for featuring them in his latest book The Death Of Bunny Munro without their prior sanction.

The star's second novel focuses on a lead character called Bunny Munro who is obsessed with the two singers. Cave, who has previously collaborated with Minogue, told BBC 6 Music that he hoped the pair would not take offence.

"I would like to publicly apologise to both of them, especially Avril Lavigne," he said. "Because the writing about her is darker and more invasive I guess.

"I know Kylie and at least, I hope, she will take it in the spirit it was written. At the time that the book was set, which was about eight years ago, or seven years ago, Kylie Minogue and her hot pants were all the tabloids wrote about in this country."

Cave recently shelved plans to build a gold statue of himself in his Australian hometown because of the global recession.