{"id":11396,"date":"2025-09-09T09:31:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T09:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/11396\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T09:31:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T09:31:15","slug":"debbie-gibson-on-the-price-she-paid-for-sudden-teen-superstardom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/11396\/","title":{"rendered":"Debbie Gibson on the price she paid for sudden teen superstardom"},"content":{"rendered":"

When pop star and former teen idol Debbie Gibson<\/a> was writing her new autobiography, Eternally Electric, she faced a unique challenge as a celebrity memoirist. She\u2019d never lived a life of sex, drugs, and rock \u2018n\u2019 roll. She came from a large, supportive Italian family, with a \u201cmomager\u201d who looked out for her and ensured she didn\u2019t succumb to the dreaded child star syndrome. She never even drank her first glass of wine until she was 38 years old. Probably the most scandalous thing Gibson ever did was refine her image when she released her \u201cdifficult third album\u201d at age 20 (\u201cIt was like, \u2018News at 11: Debbie Gibson is wearing all black!\u2019\u201d she chuckles), or, at age 30, pose for a relatively tame Playboy pictorial. (\u201cThey were like, \u2018We’ve never had this big of a clothing budget for a naked photo shoot.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\"Tessa<\/a> \"'The<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cI’m laughing, because Charlie Sheen’s book comes out the same day as mine,\u201d Gibson tells Gold Derby. \u201cSo, if you want [scandal], go get his. I mean, I can’t wait to read his personally \u2014 but I don’t think that’s what people want or expect from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo:<\/p>\n

While Eternally Electric may not exactly be M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce\u2019s The Dirt, it is a thoroughly fascinating read. It\u2019s packed with amazing anecdotes about an unknown Gibson acting in Ghostbusters (she was \u201cBirthday Girl\u201d in the Tavern on the Green scene) and on the Fame TV show alongside fellow future teen star Janet Jackson; meeting Princess Diana and having dinner with George Michael during her \u201880s heyday; performing the Soft Boys\u2019 \u201cI Wanna Destroy You\u201d at CBGB with the Circle Jerks<\/a>; and an aborted movie musical she worked on for a year, Skirts, that was supposed to be directed by Kenny Ortega and nearly starred Marisa Tomei, Juliette Lewis, Rosie Perez, David Schwimmer, Billy Wirth, and Jamie Walters, all of whom screen-tested alongside Gibson.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s also some heavy, dark stuff in there, belying Gibson\u2019s colorful and bubbly public persona. She opens up about her health issues, including a battle with Lyme disease that took years to properly diagnose and treat, her financial woes, and professionally \u201cdivorcing\u201d her mom, Diane, who had managed her for 25 years. And she\u2019s especially candid about the panic attacks and anxiety she silently suffered when she was thrust into the public eye at age 16.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the wiring of a teenage brain that’s still transforming and evolving, [extreme success] is not normal. It’s amazing, yes, but it’s not normal to hear 150,000 people chanting your name or expecting something from you. It’s just an unusual amount of energy to be coming your way,\u201d Gibson explains. \u201cAnd I think the never wanting to acknowledge that pressure got me in trouble. \u2026 I was living my dream, but I think at a certain point you have to acknowledge the psychological [effect] of what\u2019s happening. This psychiatrist who I went to at a very young age put me on Xanax and Prozac, because I had gotten so deep into a hole and I couldn’t meditate my way out of it, and he said, \u2018Your body and your mind are interpreting success as trauma. You don’t know how to process it.\u2019 So, there is an overwhelm. And that’s what depression is. You’re depressing and suppressing things. You can’t unravel what’s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibson points out that in \u201cthe late \u201880s, \u2018panic attack\u2019 wasn’t even on the tip of anyone’s tongue\u201d and there was \u201csuch a stigma around it back then.\u201d Plus, she had always dreamed of being a pop star, so didn\u2019t understand why her nervous system was reacting so chaotically once that dream actually came true. She recalls experiencing her first major panic attack while being forced to have dinner with a radio station program director, schmoozing him to get some airplay.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was probably in his 30s or 40s, and I’m thinking, \u2018Why does this older guy need to be sitting at a dinner with me?\u2019 First of all, little girls didn’t go to dinner. I went to the diner with my grandparents or my sisters. We didn’t go to fancy restaurants. So, that in and of itself was weird,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd then I’m trying to make small talk with this adult who’s not in my family. \u2026 I used this expression in the book: It felt \u2018energetically slutty.\u2019 And it was questioned by my copy editor at one point, like, \u2018Really? You want to say that?\u2019 But that’s exactly what it felt like: giving this piece of yourself in exchange for something. As a little girl, that felt weird.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibson\u2019s next major anxiety episode occurred at her high school graduation party, a \u201cbig Italian family celebration\u201d that should have been private, because was instead covered by the media. \u201cThere was a magazine photographer there, and he wouldn’t leave,\u201d she recalls. \u201cAnd I felt like I had to monitor myself. \u2026 All of a sudden I was like, \u2018Oh my God, I’m so thrilled that press is interested in me, but this has nothing to do with my music. This is my one chance to be normal all summer \u2014 and I can’t.\u2019 That was when I felt myself go into a kind of dissociative disorder, where you literally disconnect. It’s like [The Flintstones\u2019] Gazoo on your shoulder. You’re looking at yourself from another perspective, but you’re out of body. I was 17 and having these out-of-body experiences, because I couldn’t process what was going on in my actual body and mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, there were many upsides to Gibson\u2019s meteoric success. After getting her start at age 12, when her original composition \u201cI Come From America,\u201d performed on a Casio keyboard, won a songwriting contest at New York\u2019s WOR Radio, she used her winnings to fund a recording studio in the Gibson family garage. And she unwittingly set a template for female teen singer-songwriters like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Lorde, and Olivia Rodrigo. \u201cIn the \u201880s, it was pretty unheard-of for young girl artists who write their own music, let alone produce. That was very much reserved for men. That was a boys\u2019 club. I didn’t know any other girls who were wiring a patch bay or splicing tape in their playroom-slash-laundry room-slash-garage,\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n

Eventually she landed an Atlantic Records deal and became the youngest female artist to write, perform, and produce a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single, a feat she accomplished at age 17 with \u201cFoolish Beat.\u201d (She still holds that record today.) She even won ASCAP\u2019s Songwriter of the Year award, alongside Bruce Springsteen, when she was 19.<\/p>\n

But by the time Gibson was releasing 1990\u2019s Anything Is Possible \u2014 her more experimental third record, which she admits was \u201cdefinitely not cohesive\u201d \u2014 the hits were drying up. And a new kind of anxiety started to set in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to walk into [Atlantic Records President] Ahmet Ertegun\u2019s office with a brown paper lunch bag of individual 10-minute cassettes, and I would dump it on his desk and go, \u2018Here’s my album!\u2019 \u2026 They trusted that I knew who I was and knew who my audience was. But once [record executives] all started getting their hands in it, it became very convoluted,\u201d says Gibson. \u201cAnd that accountability and responsibility, being responsible for other people’s finances \u2014 like, if I go down, the whole team goes down, the label loses money, my mom loses \u2014 that’s a lot of pressure. \u2026 I talk about my mom going into that ladies\u2019 room after the [discouraging Anything Is Possible] meeting and us looking at each other, so deflated. We were like, \u2018What are we going to do? This is not fun anymore.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, [artistic experimentation] is what a body of a career is all about. But I think the label thought they signed, as I put it as a chapter title, the \u2018Pop Bullseye Girl.\u2019 Like, I’ll have a hit at any cost and just want to be on the charts. And weirdly, what they got was this mainstream artist, but with a very indie spirit who also wanted to do all that experimenting,\u201d Gibson elaborates. \u201cAnd that’s when they were kind of panicked. That album didn’t hit the \u2018bullseye.\u2019 And nothing good ever comes from a place of panic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike some other female teen-pop stars, including Janet Jackson, who as they matured became more overtly sexual to prove they were no longer innocent girls-next-door, Gibson didn\u2019t go that route. \u201cEverybody was in a rush for little girls and little-girl pop stars to grow up,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI think I weirdly had the knowledge that you do only get to be young once, so I literally clung tight to my stuffed animals and my high-tops and my clothes that were kind of baggy. I just remember thinking, \u2018I’m going to have time for all that.\u2019 I had this arrested-development thing, always. I still have it! \u2026 I definitely wasn’t in a rush to lose that little-girl side of myself. And everyone kept wanting me to. That just felt a little creepy. It was like, \u2018Why are these grown men invested in that about me?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s really strange when you start,\u201d she continues. \u201cIt is a little golden prison that you’re in, when you start out as this very innocent little girl. Because any time you try to go anywhere [artistically or stylistically], people have an opinion on it. In terms of men and that kind of sexualization, it’s been around since the beginning of time, but because I wasn’t so blatantly sexual in my everyday life, it wasn’t something I was that comfortable with dealing with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creepily, Gibson had first been approached to pose for Playboy right after her 18th birthday. She finally agreed to do it 12 years later, but when her semi-clothed \u201ctheatrical\u201d photo shoot wasn\u2019t nearly as racy as her March 2005 issue\u2019s full-frontal Playmates, the magazine used a contractual loophole to not put her on the cover, despite promising to do so. \u201cI just wasn’t as explicit as they wanted,\u201d she shrugs. But later, \u201cword came down from Hef [Playboy founder Hugh Hefner] that he\u2019d made a mistake. Because he saw all the media that I got from it. He was like, \u2018You know what? It shouldn’t be that these pop personalities and celebrities have to be the same as what the centerfold Playmate is doing.\u2019 He realized that certain celebrities showing anything at all was a big deal. And so again, I joke that I am a \u2018pioneer,\u2019 but that changed \u2014 the [Playboy] rules changed after that. I kind of quietly did that a lot more than maybe people know, and that feels good. I can sit back with that knowledge and just go, \u2018Yep, I was on the frontlines of that too.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibson may have no longer been on the pop charts or top 40 radio in the \u201890s and 2000s, but she still worked tirelessly, doing theater, TV, and film. After grinding and hustling since she was literally in middle school, she simply didn\u2019t know how to turn off or have any work-life balance. But as she says, \u201cI appeared to be superhuman stamina woman, but I was always a little more fragile than I appeared. \u2026 I had certain vulnerabilities in my system, my adrenals were never what they appeared to be, and if I pushed too hard, I paid the price.\u201d So, once she was diagnosed with a \u201cdebilitating illness,\u201d Lyme disease, at age 43, she knew she had to resist the \u201cknee-jerk reaction and temptation\u201d to say yes to every job offer \u2014 even if the money was good, or if there was that nagging feeling that such an opportunity might not come along again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really like even taking the word \u2018hustle\u2019 out of my vocabulary now,\u201d says Gibson, who just celebrated her 55th birthday. \u201cThe beauty of being an independent artist is I can control it. It often means I’m bringing in less money. I might just break even. But if I break even and I enjoyed it and I have my health, my vocal health, and my sanity at the end of it, I prefer that to \u2018let me keep grinding it out and make the money, and then fall apart.\u2019 Those days are over, which is great.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now, Gibson is at peace with her legacy, as chronicled in Eternally Electric \u2014 whether it\u2019s setting Billboard chart records, being one of the first mainstream pop stars to cross over to Broadway, or even changing Playboy\u2019s rules \u2014 whether or not she\u2019ll ever fully get the credit.<\/p>\n

\u201c[My] imagery [was] so kind of distinct and strong, it looks like a creation. I really believe that it upstages things, so it almost felt like there could have been some male mastermind behind my hits. Like, \u2018We’re going to write her a song called \u201cShake Your Love\u201d and put her in a plaid dress!\u2019 But it was all me,\u201d she grins. \u201cI just don’t think people are bothering even to read the credits at that point. And it doesn’t matter, in a way, because for me, the music always was meant to be the star. So, if someone’s hearing the song, I kind of don’t care if they’ve read the credits. It\u2019s like a little-cat-who-swallowed-the-mouse kind of feeling of like, \u2018Yep, that was me!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cMy ego doesn’t actually need it. I’m not going to be bitter because people aren’t walking around every day going, \u2018I wonder what Debbie Gibson’s piano chops are like?\u2019\u201d she laughs. \u201cI don’t have that sense of self-importance. But I guess it’s fun to be surprising people all these decades later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch Debbie Gibson\u2019s full interview, from her Las Vegas home with her \u201cElectric Youth\u201d vintage neon sign and Liberace\u2019s piano in the background, below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When pop star and former teen idol Debbie Gibson was writing her new autobiography, Eternally Electric, she faced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,13924,156,4134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-11396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-debbie-gibson","tag-entertainment","tag-fyc","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}