Cyndi Lauper: 'This is my gift, this is how I wanted to go out'

Singer, songwriter, actress, and activist — Cyndi Lauper has spent decades cultivating a career many dream of.

Now aged 71, the US star is starting to take a step back from the spotlight. She has completed the North American leg of her farewell tour in recent months, with her final European tour dates lined up for February, her first major run of shows in a decade.

“This is my gift,” she says reflecting on her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun tour. “This is how I wanted to go out. I can perform the way I’ve always wanted to perform...

“It’s a good way to say goodbye, and it’s my gift to all of the people that used to come see me.”

During her decades-long career, Lauper has won two Grammys, an Emmy for her guest appearance in 90s sitcom Mad About You, and became the first solo female composer ever to win a Tony award for Broadway hit Kinky Boots.

The New York-born singer was launched to fame following the release of her 1983 debut album, She’s So Unusual, which featured her feminist anthem ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’. It also featured hits including ‘Time After Time’ and ‘All Through The Night’, which showed off her signature voice and bagged her the Grammy for best new artist.

She carved out a space in the industry with her punk glamour style and infectious stage presence, going on to release a host of studio albums, accumulating global record sales in excess of 50 million.

Lauper reveals she was initially resistant to doing a farewell tour before she stopped and realised she had officially joined the septuagenarian club.

“I realised: ‘Do it now while you still can, you don’t want to be up there like grandma Moses’”, she says with a drawl.

However, this will not be her last hurrah, as she still plans to do future shows — but she is done with “schlepping” across the world.

“When you’re young it’s like: ‘We’re going to go and see the world,’ But you see the world quickly,” she adds.

Her tour will kick off in Glasgow on February 8, with dates scheduled for Manchester, London, Birmingham and Belfast before she moves on to continental Europe, Australia, and Japan. The shows will take fans on a musical and emotional journey through her back catalogue, which she hopes will make people laugh and cry in equal measure.

The last time she performed in the UK was on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival in June, but the performance was beset with technical difficulties, which she says meant she could not hear her band, making her out of time with them.

“Which was like a nightmare,” she admits. “But at least it was live, that’s what happens when you sing live. Nobody’s used to anybody doing that anymore, because everybody sings with the track.”

Despite the past issues, she is still looking forward to returning to British soil.

“I remember touring Great Britain in the ‘90s — that was an extraordinary tour,” she recalls with fondness.

“I had never toured Great Britain like that and I remember all my friends would say: ‘Well you have to understand the English audience, they’re a little reserved.’ They weren’t reserved at all. They were so much fun, and appreciative and full of love, and that’s how I remember touring Great Britain. So I’m grateful to be able to play (again).

“These places, even though they’re across the ocean, there are parts of England that remind me a lot of how I grew up,” adds the singer, who was raised in Queens in New York.

“I grew up in a blue-collar neighbourhood. Not that all of these places are blue-collar, but there are (some) that are and those are my people.”

Her farewell tour came about after she filmed her documentary, Let The Canary Sing, exploring her legacy and cultural impact on the industry by looking back at her meteoric ascent from the 1980s.

Directed by award-winning documentarian Alison Ellwood, the project made its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Festival.

“I always thought when I started it was not just sexist, but ageist,” she says, reflecting on her early days in the music industry.

“Because when I was coming up, so was Tina (Turner) for the second time, and they were very dopey, saying: ‘Oh how old are you?’

“It’s like: ‘Get a brain and watch and learn.’ Here’s a woman that’s older, kicks ass. It doesn’t matter how old you are, it matters about your health.”

Rising female stars like Chappell Roan, who has made a point of trying to preserve her mental health in the spotlight, are among the artists who continue to give Lauper hope for the next generation.

“I love Chappell Roan,” she says. “I think the use of colour, the use of rhythm, and the things that she says and that she’s a rebel —that’s cool.

“And when I see stuff like that, I’m excited.”

While she may be scaling back her performances, Lauper is by no means retiring. Her next project is to finish writing the music for Working Girl, a musical adaptation of the 1988 romcom of the same name. It is is set to premiere at California’s La Jolla Playhouse later this year, with plans to take it to Broadway in 2026. One road she will not go back down again is appearing on a reality show, after she “had enough” following her 2013 show Cyndi Lauper: Still So Unusual.

But she does not dwell on the bumps in her path, but takes them in her stride. “Your failures teach you, your successes teach you — and I’ve had a lot of both,” she adds.

The project did enable her to raise money for the Give A Damn campaign, which went on to launch her fund for True Colours United which supports LGBTQ+ and BIPOC homeless youth.

Lauper is passionate about her activism, having also started the Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights Fund, which raises money through fundraising and by selling quirky, colourful wigs in ode to Lauper’s signature bold style.

The fund supports women’s health and rights across the world including helping organisations who ensure women have access to safe, legal abortions and reproductive healthcare.

“You have to take care of each other. We’re all humans,” she says with conviction.

“We need to take care of ourselves, the planet, everything — and we’ll be okay.”

• Cyndi Lauper will play Belfast’s SSE Arena on February 16.