Cyndi Lauper Still Wants to Have Fun at 72! Her Farewell Tour and Rock Hall Honor (EXCLUSIVE)
Plus, info about her new broadway show!
People may see the headlines heralding Cyndi Lauper’s farewell tour and mistakenly think the pop music icon is retiring. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Lauper has been traversing the globe the past year thrilling audiences all over the world on her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour with such enduring hits as “Time After Time,” “True Colors” and “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”
This summer, she makes her final trek across America, performing at such iconic venues as the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in New York and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. However, when the Brooklyn, NY, native wraps her final show on August 30, she’ll be anything but idle. Lauper, who won a Tony Award for Best Original Score for Kinky Boots, has been writing the score for Working Girl, a Broadway adaptation of the 1988 film starring Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford.
In a major career milestone, she will also be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in November. “It’s important that women have their place in history or ‘herstory,’ and I’m proud to stand on the shoulders of the women who came before me—Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Big Mama Thornton, Wanda Jackson, Brenda Lee and the Ronettes—all of the music that I learned to how to sing and listen to,” she tells Woman’s World as our cover girl (get your copy here!). “It’s a great honor to be included with them.”
A tour de force performer who has won Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards, Lauper is the subject of the documentary Let the Canary Sing, which chronicles the ups and downs of her impressive career.
Her latest chapter commenced when she embarked on her farewell tour in October 2024, which included her first headlining gig at New York’s Madison Square Garden, a sold out show that earned rave reviews. The tour, which features collaborations with Yakoi Kusama, Christian Siriano and Daniel Wurtzel, is part of Live Nation’s Ticket to Summer, which will make select tickets available for $30. The final leg of the 24-city tour kicks off July 17 in Mansfield, MA and includes stops in Philadelphia, PA, Denver, CO, Raleigh, NC, Vancouver, British Columbia and Cincinnati, OH before wrapping in LA with two nights at the Hollywood Bowl. Jake Wesley Rogers will be the opening act for the summer shows.
“The songs together do tell a story and it’s my story, but it’s important for all of us to share our story,” Cyndi says. “That’s another takeaway and the fact that people leave happy and hopeful and is a great thing to be able to do. That’s what I focus on is bringing community together and that everyone is welcome.”
Cyndi is still enjoying the party
Cyndi says she enjoys seeing fans come out and have fun. “People come dressed up because it’s a party,” she says. “We sell wigs and the proceeds go to the Girls Just Want To Have Fundamental Rights Fund,” which Cyndi launched in 2022 to support women’s issues. “It’s fun to look out and see colored hair. It’s fun and it’s a celebration. People come together and it’s a community. We laugh. We cry. We sing. We dance.”
When asked why she decided it was time to do a farewell tour, Cyndi responds, “I’m 72 this year and I’m strong now, but I want to be able to be great at what I do. I want to be able to sing great, and my songs aren’t like little pop songs that I could put in a track and sing to. It’s like you’re either going to sing them or not, and I’m singing. I want to be the best I can and right now, I’m strong. I don’t know what I’m going to be like in another four years. It seems to me it always takes me another three years to come up with something and I want to work on Working Girl after this and I have another one after that that I want to do.”
She doesn’t rule out the possibility of performing in concert again, perhaps doing a residency. “If I’m not busy, I’d want to do a show where I can stay in the same place and bring art in and create a little happening for people,” she says. “I would do it in a heartbeat, but the packing and unpacking, the uncertainty at airports, all that stuff is very difficult. Staying in one spot ain’t bad.”
Cyndi is leaving her unique mark
Married to David Thornton since 1991 and the mother of one son, Cyndi is also well known for her activism and philanthropy. In addition to the Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights Fund, she has also launched the True Colors Fund to combat gay and transgender youth homelessness.
“Making people happy is very, very important,” Cyndi says. “When I was a kid growing up, I was the odd ball. I didn’t fit it. I started singing when I was two. The lady upstairs taught me a song in Italian. I sang it, everybody applauded and then I was in. I figured out if I did something great, that would make me feel good that I could contribute as opposed to not contributing and not being great at anything.”
Cyndi admits she got a lot of her strength and moxie from her mother and grandmother. “I was raised a certain way by Sicilian women and the one thing that they taught me more than anything—especially from my grandmother—was endurance.
“The most important thing that I could pass on to the women who read this is you have to have endurance and strength,” shares Cyndi. “Sometimes there’s gatekeepers and they ain’t got no vision. They are just there to block you. You need to find your way around the gatekeepers and get to the other side because you’ve got a mission. Everybody on this planet has a purpose and once you find your purpose, don’t let nobody get in your way.”
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