Cyndi Lauper Had a 'Hard Time with Fame' After Her Debut Album in 1983: 'Scared the Hell Out of Me'

• Cyndi Lauper has opened up about her rise to fame in the early ’80s
• The singer called this experience a “difficult moment”
• “I wanted to do wild things, and people would say, ‘Oh, that’s really weird,'” Lauper remembers

For Cyndi Lauper, growing fame wasn’t much fun.

In an interview with her, the star talked about the toll her early success took on her Sup published on Thursday, November 14. The music superstar, 71, reflected on her career and shared that she had a “tough time” when her debut album, She is so unusual, was published in 1983.

“Before, I walked, listened, sat, wrote and walked some more,” she explained. “But when I became famous and tried to walk alone, people would follow me. Once a car stopped in front of me and all those people jumped out of the car. Fortunately, they only wanted autographs, but this kind of thing really scared me.”

Cyndi Lauper in 1983.

Terry Lott/Sony Music Archive via Getty

“I found myself taking down all the things I had collected and loved and hiding them,” she said. “I had all these feelings exploding in color, and all of a sudden it was like, Get it back, bitch, you can’t go anywhere.”

Cyndi Lauper’s life in photos

She also noted, “When I first hit, people took everything I wore — the color, the style, you name it — and then spat it out and moved on to the next one.” She remembered watching a documentary about Steve Martin in which he described a similar phenomenon: it took him a long time to hone his comedic sensibilities, but once he joined Saturday night liveeveryone else copied it. “Suddenly the culture sucked him in, spat him out and passed on to the next person. That’s how I felt,” she said.

Lauper also said, “She is so unusual shocked and scared everyone. They looked at me and said, What the hell?” As a former art student, she said, she gave her make-up artist her make-up like “war paint”, and she really liked “colour” and “vintage”.

“Back then I wanted to do wild things, and people would say, ‘Oh, that’s really weird,'” she said. “It just made me want to do it even more. Let’s go after it. Let’s do this.”

Cyndi Lauper 1984 Ron Galella/Wireimage Cyndi Lauper Says There Was No Real Feud With Madonna: ‘I’ve Loved Her Forever’ ‘Like A Prayer’ (Exclusive)

Lauper was 30 years old at the time She is so unusual he was released; before that she spent years trying to make it in the industry. The album was a huge success, thanks in part to the singles “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “Time After Time,” and earned Lauper two Grammys.

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In October, Lauper opened up to PEOPLE about aging and her farewell tour. “It sucks,” she said of aging. “Like in ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,’ you might even say they smoke!”

Cyndi Lauper 2024.

Charles Sykes/Bravo via Getty

To avoid feeling old, she said, the key is to “take care of yourself.” “That’s the main thing. I try to force myself to do something — bike, walk, weights, yoga. Yoga is great, because it just mentally puts you in the zone. But who wants to get old and decrepit? Nobody! But the trick, I guess, is not you get too shabby.”

But the Tony winner said she also doesn’t try to get too caught up in her past accomplishments. “It feels like a million years ago,” she explained of her early career. “I have never tried to live in the past because I know that everything changes in the world and in your life. There are so many different chapters that not being able to open a new one is a crime.”

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Source: HIS Education