In an excerpt from her upcoming memoir Face It published in The Sun, Harry, 74, revealed that the intruder broke into the New York City home she shared with then-boyfriend, Blondie guitarist Chris Stein, tying him up and ransacking the place in search of valuables.
“Then he poked round searching for anything worth anything,” she wrote.
“He piled up the guitars and Chris’s camera and then he untied my hands and told me to take off my pants,” she continued. “He f**ked me. And then he said, ‘Go clean yourself.'”
However, she added: “The stolen guitars hurt me more.”
Founding members of Blondie, singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein—who were dating at the time of forming the band—have remained in a close creative collaboration for decades.
As part of the band’s 40th anniversary, Stein decided to publish a series of images as part of his 2014 book Me, Blondie, and the Advent of Punk. “I was taking pictures of everything around me, among them Debbie,” Stein writes in the book. “I was always aware of her astonishing looks and the effect she had on people.”
The book chronicles their relationship, their work and intimate pictures that Stein had carried along with him for years. Harry, who has been the focal point of interviews for more than 40 years, repeatedly faced comparisons to Marilyn Monroe, being described as a ‘pin up’, asked questions about her hair colour and her general appearance as whole, had an amazing ability to remain a free and easy personality despite the overriding media attention.
Debbie Harry, who became an icon as the frontwoman of Blondie, has announced her first autobiography.
The singer says she was initially reluctant to write memoir but is already considering a second volume
The lead singer of Blondie revealed she hitched a lift from a handsome stranger in New York City the early 1970s.“For some reason, there were no cabs and I was wearing these big platform shoes,” Harry wrote.
“This car kept circling round and round, this guy was calling out, ‘Come on, I’ll give you a ride.’ Finally, I gave in and got in the car. I realized I’d made a big mistake.”
“Then I looked over at the door to crank down the window and saw there was no door handle, no crank,” she recalled.“I cast my eyes around and saw that the car had been gutted. There was nothing in there.“The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, so I stuck my arm out through the crack in the window and managed to open the door from the outside.” She added: “I was so lucky.”
Face It will recount Blondie’s rise in New York, when the band drew together the three great music styles of the city in the late 1970s – punk, disco and rap – into their own brand of supremely successful pop. A mix of Harry-penned essays and interviews with journalist Sylvie Simmons, Face It will also feature unseen photos alongside art from fans.
“I didn’t want to [write it], but I did,” said Harry. “There are many more stories for me to tell, some funny, some scary, some warm, some chill to the bone, and if Face It appeals to people then I will get to telling more of the anecdotal bits of the story of Blondie – like the time I met Rita Hayworth and Penny Singleton backstage at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles … I have led a very full life and couldn’t possibly cover everything in just one volume.”
She added: “I’m prepared for the best and the worst comments, much like when I have released an album or done a big show. I don’t have a thick skin, but I do have a pretty good sense of humour.”
Blondie released the album Pollinator in 2017 and are preparing to tour with Elvis Costello across North America this summer. Harper Collins will publish Face It on 1 October.
Their opening gig is July 20 in Bethel, New York, at the amphitheater on the site of the original 1969 Woodstock festival. From there the tour is split up almost evenly between points east and west, with a date at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles August 5 before the tour wraps up in Seattle August 10.
The tour, which is being advertised as “Blondie and the Beastly E.C.!,” an apparent nod to “Beauty and the Beast,” will have a fan club resale beginning at noon in the appropriate time zones today, followed by a general on-sale at the Live Nation website 10 Saturday morning.(Source Syracuse.com)
It’s been 40 years since Costello and Blondie shared top billings on the UK Singles Chart, with the Debbie Harry-led "Heart of Glass” going neck-and-neck with Costello & The Attraction’s “Oliver’s Army.” The same week, Blondie’s seminal album “Parallel Lines,” reached #1 on the Album Chart while Costello’s “Armed Forces,” landed at #3.
