The following article includes mentions of addiction, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
With her bleached blond hair and brash style, Harry became the ultimate “it” girl.
Born Angela Tremble in Miami Florida, Harry got off to a shaky start in the world.
For starters, her conception was the result of an extramarital affair and she was put up for adoption.
“As an adopted child, my deep-rooted fear has always been abandonment,” she toldThe Daily Mail.
“It’s always been scary for me to see people leave.”
However, her mother was not interested in a relationship, so Harry let it go.
“I hated looking in mirrors.
I never saw myself the way others saw me.”
However, “normal” was not a part of Harry’s vocabulary.
Ever since she was a child, Harry knew she wanted something more.
“I wanted to get out in the world,” she toldThe Times.
I had ambition."
That was par for the course for me."
With her striking looks, Harry had no shortage of lovers or stalkers.
“That was crazy, wasn’t it,” she said while recounting the experience to The Guardian.
His relentless pursuit of the singer led her to move back to New York.
It also led to one of Blondie’s most famous songs, “One Way or Another.”
“Oh, I’ve had several,” she said in an interview with Vice.
Harry also had one ardent fan who sent her so many letters that she had to involve a detective.
“I kept refusing, but finally I took the ride because I couldn’t get a cab.”
I fell out and nearly got run over by a cab," she shared.
After collecting all the material possessions he wanted, the intruder demanded one more thing.
“I can’t say that I felt a lot of fear.
In the end, the stolen guitars hurt me more than the rape.”
Her matter-of-fact response to being sexually assaulted left some readers in shock and seemed indicative of a bigger issue.
“Blondie was always at the bottom of the A-List,” Stein toldThe Independent.
“Everybody liked us, but nobody thought we would be successful.”
Take a look atrock star Steven Tyler’s journey with addiction, for instance.
As the success and subsequent pressure associated with Blondie grew, so did the couple’s drug use.
“I was absolutely a drug addict for a couple of years,” she told Daily Mail.
“Everything fell apart and I fell apart along with it.'
“Drugs are a funny thing,” Harry toldThe Standard.
It was kind of a full-time occupation and a waste of time.
Luckily for me, I was able to handle the withdrawal.”
As Debbie Harry found out, even the most financially successful artists can go belly-up.
Neither their relationship, nor the band, survived the fallout.
“It was a hard lesson to learn.”
He was eventually diagnosed with pemphigus vulgaris, a rare and potentially life-threatening autoimmune disease.
Harry spent the next several years taking care of Stein, even sneaking him heroin into the hospital.
With so much on her plate, however, she made some bad career moves.
“My record company didn’t want me to take time out to do a movie.
I shouldn’t have listened to them.”
But the one that eluded her was the title of “mom.”
“I guess there’s some missing element in my chromosomes.”
“My natural inclination is to really throw myself into things.
It wouldn’t be like I could hand over the baby.
I would really want to be involved.”
“There are less men around for people my age, though,” she told The Standard.
“They’re all married with children.”
