It's been 29 years this week since She's So Unusual, and she still is. In her new book Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir [Kindle] she reveals she was assaulted by a bandmember, his girlfriend, and the girlfriend's sister, and she stayed in the band. After her huge success, and her failure to sustain it, she considered killing herself. She has rainbow hair, she sang about Blueboy magazine, of course she loves The Gays! She started her True Colors Tour and True Colors Fund to get you some rights, dammit. Oh, and she says Madonna sped up the vocals on "Like a Virgin" to sound like her. Next June during Pride, she'll be 60.
Asked about her fierce queer advocacy she said,"Because I'm a friend and family member, okay? Because I'm not gonna stand by one of my best friends and watch them be discriminated against and have all their civil liberties stripped down -- or my sister or my cousin or whoever -- and just stand there and shut up. Up to 40% of the kids on the street are gay or transgender and they're only on the street because they're gay or transgender. We figured that is fixable. We could fix that. We could get that better."
One thing she's not, is Patti Smith. Cyndi's publisher Atria has done her no favors by aping the jacket of the National Book Award winner Just Kids. Don't they know she's an original?
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