Scratch the surface of a hugely successful artist and you\u2019ll often find the needy, self-doubting child within. Yet Lennox \u2013 one of the great divas of British pop and formerly one half of the 1980s synth power duo Eurythmics<\/a> \u2013 puts her feelings of general anxiousness mainly down to being neurodivergent<\/a>. She was diagnosed in September last year after being tested for ADHD and passing with \u201cflying colours\u201d. <\/p>\n \u201cI veer off on tangential roads, down rabbit holes,\u201d she tells me, describing her tendency to daydream, lose her keys, or forget where her phone is, alongside difficulties with numeracy and… \u201cwhat\u2019s that word I\u2019m looking for… this is typical… procrastination, yes! But I\u2019m not interested in taking Ritalin or whatever people take,\u201d she adds. \u201cI don\u2019t want to add more chemical pharmaceuticals to my system. Instead, by understanding it, I can be less hard on myself.\u201d<\/p>\n Lennox is talking over a video call from her home in LA, where she has lived with her third husband Mitch Besser since 2019. The signature close crop that graced so many album and cult fashion magazine covers in the 1980s is still, fabulously, in place, and although she is dressed down in a khaki shirt, she\u2019s sporting a dramatic slash of red lipstick. Now 70, she looks barely unchanged from the coolly androgynous pop star who soared to No 2 in 1983 with Eurythmics\u2019 breakthrough single \u201cSweet Dreams (Are Made of This)\u201d, though she puts her youthful glow down to a bit of \u201cslap\u201d and a ring light on a tripod at her side, \u201cheld together with tape\u201d. She\u2019s unfazed about getting older. \u201cAt this stage in life, although it might sound hackneyed, \u2018health\u2019 is the main thing worth aiming for,\u201d she says. \u201cNothing is ever guaranteed from one moment to the next.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019ve met because Lennox is about to release a coffee-table-style memoir of her life, Annie Lennox: Retrospective; a lovingly curated collection of photographs spanning her seven decades. There\u2019s an early picture of a six-year-old Lennox singing with her class at school \u2013 \u201cYou can tell which one is me: I\u2019ve got the big mouth,\u201d she tells me \u2013 and one of her as a baby. \u201cWhat really intrigues me is the look in that baby\u2019s eyes,\u201d she writes. \u201cVery intently staring at the camera.\u201d There\u2019s Lennox in a silver boiler suit signing her name on a fan\u2019s arm, \u201can early dip into fame\u201d, at her first ever record signing at a store in Oxford Street with her band The Tourists, which she formed in 1976 with her future Eurythmics bandmate and sometime boyfriend, Dave Stewart. <\/p>\n And of course there are many, many photographs from her defining Eurythmics-era pop career. \u201cAt first, I would bleach my hair as white as it would go,\u201d she writes, describing the day she dyed her hair red for the video of \u201cSweet Dreams\u201d. \u201cThen I\u2019d make up a thick paste with hot water mixed with henna powder, which I\u2019d layer all over my head. It was a messy process, with the unwieldy globs of henna paste dropping everywhere. But the striking effect made it all worth the effort.\u201d <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Annie Lennox is releasing a coffee-table-style memoir of her life, a lovingly curated collection of photographs spanning her seven decades (Rizzoli)<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to forget just how groundbreaking an artist Lennox was when Eurythmics arrived in the early 1980s. Their achingly beautiful synth-pop hits, \u201cThere Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)\u201d, \u201cLove Is a Stranger\u201d and \u201cHere Comes the Rain Again\u201d, have sold more than 75 million albums. Yet it was her impassive masculine style that really broke the mould, changing for ever the way we think about female pop stars. Her boyish pixie cut, studied poise and habit of wearing men\u2019s suits, which she would buy from \u201ccheap gentleman\u2019s outfitters\u201d, broke with the tradition of glossily made-up, very feminine pop stars that had dominated the 1970s, and became a defining part of the gender-queer 1980s pop scene alongside the contributions of artists such as Prince, Grace Jones, David Bowie and Boy George.<\/p>\n Yet she says her style was not primarily about gender ideology. \u201cIn terms of feminism I was somewhat unevolved,\u201d she says. Instead, she and Stewart were predominantly influenced by visual art. \u201c[The suits] were a casual decision. We thought, let\u2019s be identical twins. You know, let\u2019s be Gilbert & George. Their philosophy, \u2018Art is life and life is art\u2019, was very inspiring for us because we were living for our art.\u201d She admits, though, that subverting the male gaze was also part of it. \u201cI wanted to perform as a woman, but I didn\u2019t want to be regarded as a piece of meat,\u201d she explains. \u201cBut the press rhymed \u2018gender\u2019 and \u2018bender\u2019 \u2013 and I was, \u2018Oh, now I\u2019m a \u2018gender bender\u2019. But that really wasn\u2019t who I was. I found the label somewhat reductive.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Lennox, who went on to have an extremely successful solo career in the 1990s, has resisted reductive labels all her life. She has also always resisted the pop industry machine that tends to regard young female stars as bait. In 2013, she spoke out against the oversexualised state of the music business, condemning in particular \u201cpornographic pop videos\u201d. What does she think about the landscape now, which has arguably become even more sexualised thanks to the explicit provocations of artists such as Sabrina Carpenter and Charlie xcx? \u201cI was originally objecting to the fact that [it was the] record companies [who] were promoting this hypersexualised look,\u201d she says. \u201cThey were like, \u2018Whoa, we\u2019ve got soft porn with a musical background. That\u2019ll make a ton of money.\u2019 And it did.<\/p>\n \u201cNow these artists, the ones you\u2019ve referenced, they\u2019ve found their niche, and I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s all soft porn. But hypersexualisation has become so normalised. I would say that if you want to do that, then you just have to live with whatever comes from it. That will be your life experience.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Lennox and Dave Stewart met in a health food restaurant in Hampstead in 1975, where she was a waitress \u2013 and formed The Tourists and later the Eurythmics (Lewis Ziolek)<\/p>\n Lennox herself found the music industry in the late 1970s to be very \u201cmale-led\u201d. \u201cThey certainly would have wanted to exploit my female side more,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd that was never said explicitly, but it was there. And so doing things in the way we did was always like a bit of a rebuff.\u201d In 1986, she famously took off her top to expose a red bra while performing \u201cMissionary Man\u201d at a Eurythmics concert in Birmingham. \u201cThat had less to do with exploiting my sexuality than sticking a middle finger to the male gaze. I was saying, \u2018I will do what I like on my terms.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n All the same, she acknowledges that having Stewart alongside her made her less vulnerable to being exploited. They met in a health food restaurant in Hampstead in 1975, where she was a waitress; in Stewart\u2019s 2016 memoir, Sweet Dreams Are Made of This, he describes her back then as a mix of \u201cLaura Ashley dresses and longish brown hair\u201d. They were a couple for three years before breaking up and then founding the Eurythmics in 1980, and collaborated intensely for the next two decades with the odd break in between (Lennox was briefly married in the mid-1980s to her first husband, Radha Raman). Their bond has always been both complex and fierce: Lennox\u2019s 1992 debut solo single \u201cWhy\u201d was about Stewart; Stewart once said that he knew \u201cjust about every tiny molecule of Annie\u201d. \u201cSo I was not a separate entity,\u201d she points out. \u201cAll the way through The Tourists and Eurythmics, I had a partner with me.\u201d<\/p>\n The press rhymed \u2018gender\u2019 and \u2018bender\u2019 \u2013 and I was, \u2018Oh, now I\u2019m a \u2018gender bender\u2019. But that really wasn\u2019t who I was. I found the label somewhat reductive<\/p>\n There was never a formal announcement of a Eurythmics split, but the pair largely went their separate ways in 1990. That same year Lennox gave birth to her first daughter, Lola, with her second husband Uri Fruchtman, then three years later had another, Tali, a year after the release of her first solo album, Diva, which had entered the UK charts at No 1. From the outside she looked to have the world at her feet. Yet a few years previously, in 1988, she had lost a son, Daniel, also with Fruchtmann, to still birth \u2013 an experience she describes as \u201chorrendous\u201d. <\/p>\n At the height of her solo career, in the early Nineties, with a young family to bring up, she took a break from touring, citing in her new book \u201cexhaustion, guilt, anxiety, and insecurity\u201d. She was finding the conflict between motherhood and her career overwhelming. \u201cOf course I suffered from mum guilt. I love being a mother, and I have a very strong maternal instinct,\u201d she tells me. \u201cBut then there\u2019s another aspect to me, which is the artist, that I didn\u2019t really want to die.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Lennox performs \u2018Under Pressure\u2019 with David Bowie at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at London\u2019s Wembley Stadium in 1992 (Getty)<\/p>\n She met her husband of 13 years, Besser, an American doctor who founded the charity Mothers2Mothers, in 2009; they married in 2012. Life in the US has brought her unexpectedly close to \u201cgreat things\u201d like coyotes, hawks, and hummingbirds, which surround her home tucked away in the Hollywood Hills. Next door is what she calls her \u201ccreative space\u201d \u2013 a cottage where she can retreat to play her Steinway grand piano; it also features a mirrored wall and a sequinned Annie Lennox diva doll with orange and pink feathers, given to her as a gift by Joni Mitchell after she and Mitchell performed at the Hollywood Bowl. It was the eve of the 2024 US elections, and Mitchell memorably let rip at Donald Trump from the stage.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s extremely affecting living under this regime,\u201d Lennox says now. \u201cThe USA has always thrived on a reputation of \u2018success\u2019, and the concept of the American dream is like a glittering prize. Many US citizens evidently felt that the dream had been stolen from them, so they turned to an extreme right-wing agenda to find it again. I suspect that dream has probably left the building.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Lennox doing her first ever record signing in Oxford Street with her band The Tourists, which she formed in 1976 with Dave Stewart (Courtesy of Annie Lennox)<\/p>\n Lennox has been a campaigner all her life, raising millions for Aids charities. She\u2019s very vocal on human rights and has spoken out many times in particular against Israel\u2019s treatment of Gaza. Both of her children, singer Lola, 34, and model Tali, 32, are half-Israeli. All the same, she was accused of antisemitism in 2010 after she criticised Israel, which she said really \u201churt her\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cTens of thousands of Palestinians over two years have been slaughtered in front of our eyes,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd then if you speak up about that, you\u2019re antisemitic? It doesn\u2019t make sense to me. I know from my own lived experience, I don\u2019t have one ounce of antisemitism in me. I love my Jewish family. I love my Jewish friends.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Shooting the video for \u2018There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)\u2019 (Courtesy of Annie Lennox)<\/p>\n The artist in Lennox certainly shows no sign of slowing down. She has been writing and recording songs recently, although she doesn\u2019t yet have a clear plan as to when they\u2019ll be released. She finds the pressure of being in the public eye difficult. \u201cThe money is nice, I\u2019m not going to pretend it isn’t,\u201d she says. \u201cBut the fame \u2013 oooh. It\u2019s not always easy. It\u2019s something you just have to handle.\u201d The creating part, however, is nothing but joyful. \u201cIt\u2019s the articulation of the Sturm und Drang of the soul.\u201d <\/p>\n \u2018Retrospective\u2019 by Annie Lennox is published on 16 September by Rizzoli, \u00a350<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-142438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Annie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/annie-lennox-interview.jpeg\")
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