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  • Kelsea Ballerini Gets ACM Nod, Sings With Cyndi Lauper, Ingrid Michaelson in Nashville

    Kelsea Ballerini joined an unusual Nashville lineup when she performed on stage with Cyndi Lauper and Ingrid Michaelson during a rousing rendition of Lauper’s 1983 hit song “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

    Opening the Skyville Live web series with “Peter Pan,” Kelsea Ballerini loved working with both Lauper and Michaelson.

    The three posed for selfies that were shared on social media.

    “Girls just wanna have fun,” Ingrid Michaelson captioned this shot of herself alongside Kelsea Ballerini and Cyndi Lauper.

    In this next post, dubbed “Girls just wanna have fun part deux,” Kelsea Ballerini puckers up for the picture.

    Cyndi Lauper shared a photo, too, and captioned it, “Ok. One more for now. ?? #ingridmichaelson #kelseaballerini.”

    A photo posted by Cyndi Lauper (@cyndilauper) on

    While it may be hard to fathom these three coming together to make amazing music, it shouldn’t. Cyndi Lauper is actually joining the likes of Kelsea Ballerini in making a country album. “Detours” is set to drop in May.

    Kelsea Ballerini, by the way, just learned she’s been nominated for “Female Vocalist of the Year” at the upcoming ACM Awards.

  • La La Anthony Opens Up About Her Psoriasis, Credits Kim Kardashian

    La La Anthony is joining a slew of other actresses, singers, and otherwise famous folks in revealing something that might be considered a bit embarrassing about herself. La La Anthony is going public about the fact that she has psoriasis.

    La La Anthony is partnering with the National Psoriasis Foundation for their Picture Positivity campaign. The writer, actress and wife of NBA player Carmelo Anthony says of her decision to reveal her condition to the public, “I’m all about trying to help others out there and giving the best advice based on my experiences — so if I can continue to do that, I’m really happy.”

    La La Anthony has written two books, The Power Playbook and its predecessor The Love Playbook. But this is the first time she has gone into such detail about her struggle with psoriasis.

    “About 10 years ago is when I first noticed it, and I didn’t know what it was,” La La says. “I had it really bad in my scalp and behind my ears, but my scalp is where I suffer from it the worst.”

    “I’ve had this for a long time and I’ve still been able to go on and I’ve still been able to do all these amazing things, and I’ve never let psoriasis get in the way of any of that,” Anthony says. “You don’t have to be ashamed, you don’t have to hide in the closet because of it, you can still live life and do amazing things, which is what the Picture Positivity campaign is all about.”

    Anthony now has a role as a series regular on A&E’s Unforgettable. She tells how her look for that role has to consider the effects of her psoriasis.

    “I have my hair slicked all the way back for the TV show I’m shooting; while it’s part of my character, it’s also because my scalp has a bit of a flare-up now, so just by slicking it back it covers everything up,” she reveals.

    Such techniques to cover the flare-ups have become part of how La La and other people deal with the condition.

    “I started to use my clothing, whether it’s hats or long sleeves or pants — or when it breaks out on my scalp I’ll do my hair a certain way, like pulled back in a ponytail,” she says.

    La La Anthony joins Cyndi Lauper and Kim Kardashian in coming out about her condition. She credits Kim Kardashian, particularly, with helping her get over her feelings of shame about her psoriasis.

    “The thing I’ve taken from [Kim] is not to be afraid of it, not to be ashamed of it,” she says. “It’s something that we have; it doesn’t make us any less human, or weird or freaky. It’s about being open with what we have and being open with other people who are suffering from the same thing. If I was to take anything from her it would be that: to not be ashamed of it.”

  • Cyndi Lauper Opens Up About Her Embarrassing Disease To Help Others

    Cyndi Lauper Opens Up About Her Embarrassing Disease To Help Others

    Cyndi Lauper is stepping into the spotlight with some embarrassing details about her personal life and health. Lauper hopes that her own story will help other people who may be suffering with the same disease she has kept secret for most of her career.

    Cyndi Lauper has psoriasis. At its worst, she said she could hardly perform or go out in public.

    Her skin flaked off so badly during her onstage shows that she started wearing a mesh body suit under her clothes. “When I took it off, it was like ‘Ugh,’” she says. “The people I was working with would look at me and say, ‘That looks like it hurts.’”

    “It was so bad, I felt like the Elephant Man,” says Lauper.

    The whole thing seemed fairly simple when it started, Lauper recalls.

    “First, I thought I just had a really bad bleach job,” Lauper says. “I am a suicide blonde after all.”

    So she got a special shampoo from a dermatologist. But her troubles did not end there.

    “My whole entire body was covered in a rash and scaly skin. And then it just stared creeping up my neck. I felt swallowed by it. My immune system got a little wacky, and it took my strength away,” says Lauper. “My skin was so inflamed, it could not regulate hot and cold, so I had the chills all the time.”

    Cyndi Lauper used her flamboyant public image to help hide her condition.

    “I dyed my hair red, put extensions in and then I just wore a wig so I wouldn’t have to mess with my scalp too much,” Lauper said. “It really started to hurt.”

    But things got so bad that eventually she had to nearly cover herself entirely.

    “I just kept wearing higher-necked clothes, turtlenecks and long sleeves,” she says. “I looked like a nun. It’s not an attractive look. I like to wear tight clothes so what am I gonna do, wear a potato sack? No. I lost it. I stopped singing for a while. I felt depressed and I felt horrible.”

    Lauper’s message to other psoriasis sufferers is simple:

    “You don’t have to suffer in silence or live in pain,” says Lauper. “It’s not just a rash. It’s a disease.”

    “I’m not alone. There are 7.5 million Americans with this. Find a doctor who specializes in psoriasis and find a treatment. Find what works for you. You gotta keep going because if not, you’ll end up on your butt like I was.”

    “I don’t want anyone to be a silent psoriasis sufferer,” she says. “You can’t just lay in the dark and get depressed and feel like the disease has won. You can win, just get the information and get help – because suffering in silence really sucks.”

  • Cyndi Lauper Reveals Her Secret Disease That She Keeps Covered Up

    Cyndi Lauper has come forward with an admission about something that almost wrecked her career. The Kinky Boots producer has joined a campaign to help sufferers of psoriasis, and is revealing some pretty personal details about her own battle with the disease in the process.

    “First, I thought I just had a really bad bleach job,” Lauper says. “I am a suicide blonde after all.”

    So she got a special shampoo from a dermatologist. But her troubles did not end there.

    “My whole entire body was covered in a rash and scaly skin. And then it just stared creeping up my neck. I felt swallowed by it. My immune system got a little wacky, and it took my strength away,” says Lauper. “My skin was so inflamed, it could not regulate hot and cold, so I had the chills all the time.”

    Since Cyndi Lauper had a public image for dressing flamboyantly and wild, she used that to her advantage.

    “I dyed my hair red, put extensions in and then I just wore a wig so I wouldn’t have to mess with my scalp too much,” Lauper said. “It really started to hurt.”

    As the disease spread to other parts of her body, she had to cover up more.

    “I just kept wearing higher-necked clothes, turtlenecks and long sleeves,” she says. “I looked like a nun. It’s not an attractive look. I like to wear tight clothes so what am I gonna do, wear a potato sack? No.”

    Her skin flaked off so badly during her onstage shows that she started wearing a mesh body suit under her clothes. “When I took it off, it was like ‘Ugh,’” she says. “The people I was working with would look at me and say, ‘That looks like it hurts.’”

    “It was so bad, I felt like the Elephant Man,” says Lauper

    Now Cyndi Lauper hopes her story helps others who are ashamed of how their skin condition may be perceived in public.

    “You don’t have to suffer in silence or live in pain,” says Lauper. “It’s not just a rash. It’s a disease.”

    Her dermatologist diagnosed her with psoriasis and gave her a special shampoo.

    But that was just the beginning. Two years later, the rash flared up and “kicked into something scary,” she says.

    “I tried every kind of natural cure I could,” says Lauper, who at times was so weak she couldn’t leave her bed. “It was like I Love Lucy. I felt like a mad scientist mixing this and that.”

    To this day, Cyndi Lauper still doesn’t know what kicked the whole thing off, but she knows that certain foods and other factors make it worse. And she knows it almost derailed her career entirely.

    “Everybody says it’s stress but I’ve always had stress,” said Lauper. “My whole job is stress.”

    Once her voice started to be affected, Lauper felt she was at a new low.

    “I lost it. I stopped singing for a while. I felt depressed and I felt horrible.”

    “I’m not alone,” says Lauper. “There are 7.5 million Americans with this. Find a doctor who specializes in psoriasis and find a treatment. Find what works for you. You gotta keep going because if not, you’ll end up on your butt like I was.”

    “I don’t want anyone to be a silent psoriasis sufferer,” she says. “You can’t just lay in the dark and get depressed and feel like the disease has won. You can win, just get the information and get help – because suffering in silence really sucks.”

  • Cyndi Lauper Got ‘Kinky’ Inspiration From Her Son

    Cyndi Lauper has come a long way since her “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” days. Not that the superstar leaves all that behind her. It is as much a part of who she is now as her “Kinky Boots” awards or her husband and son.

    In fact, it is the way Lauper weaves together all the disparate parts of her life that makes her so successful. She has always been a fighter, even from the first album.

    “I had to wrestle my way onto my own album,” Lauper said of She’s So Unusual. “They said, ‘You should just stand there and sing. You should dress like Katrina and the Waves.’”

    Cyndi Lauper is now 61 years old. She got where she is by not doing what people would expect.

    She watched her son growing up, how he interacted with his father, and used those lessons to inform her writing of songs for “Kinky Boots.”

    “‘I’m Not My Father’s Son’ [from Kinky Boots] is about unconditional love and about being true to yourself,” says Lauper. “Not everyone has an ideal relationship with their fathers, and sometimes there is some stuff you can’t fix, but even Lola, whose dad rejects him, was able to find some closure with his father in the show.”

    “I started observing my own son and husband,” Lauper says. “I got a lot of the lyrics in the chorus from watching [my son] Declan, how when he was really small he just imitated his dad … tried to walk like him and be just like him.”

    “When kids are little, they try to be exactly like their dads,” Lauper observed. “But in the end, all little boys have to grow up and be the men who they are supposed to be, not the image of what they think their fathers want.”

    Lauper even found inspiration from her mother-in-law who, she says, “used to tell my husband he had ‘the patience of Job,’ which I think all good fathers have to have,” says Lauper. “David is a great dad.”

  • John Mellencamp Up for Songwriters Hall of Fame

    Heartland rock singer John Mellencamp has been nominated for the 2014 Songwriters Hall of Fame, along with Madonna and Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. Other artists also nominated include Ray Davies, Cyndi Lauper and Linda Perry.

    Here’s Mellencamp’s “Small Town”

    Mellencamp, sometimes known as John Cougar Mellencamp, was previously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March, 2008. Longtime Rolling Stone contributor Anthony DeCurtis commented on the singer – “Mellencamp has created an important body of work that has earned him both critical regard and an enormous audience. His songs document the joys and struggles of ordinary people seeking to make their way, and he has consistently brought the fresh air of common experience to the typically glamour-addled world of popular music.”

    “Hurts So Good”

    The Songwriters Hall of Fame gala will be held on June 12 at the New York Marriot Marquis. Additional performing songwriter nominees include Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson, Vince Gill, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, Donovan, Cat Stevens and Harry Wayne Casey. Nonperforming songwriter nominees include “Midnight Train to Georgia” writer Jim Weatherly, Motown songwriter William “Mickey” Stevenson and country music songwriters Bobby Braddock and Bill Anderson.

    “Jack And Diane”

    Mark James, the writer behind “Always on My Mind”, which was covered by Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson, is also nominated alongside Don Robertson, Graham Gouldman and Tony Macaulay. Writing duos Hugo and Luigi, Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell, and Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham will also compete.

    Eligible voters can select two nominees from the list of songwriter-performers and three nonperforming songwriters. Voting ends Dec. 16.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons.

  • ‘Kinky Boots’ Walks Away With 6 Tony Awards

    The 67th Annual Tony Awards were held last night, hosted once again by Neil Patrick Harris. The big news of the night seemed to be Kinky Boots, the Broadway musical that ended the night with six Tony Awards.

    Kinky Boots won awards for Best Sound Design, Best Orchestrations, Best Choreography, and Best Musical. Billy Porter also won Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical for his role in Kinky Boots as drag queen Lola. Pop star Cyndi Lauper (pictured) won the Tony Award for Best Original Score Written for the Theatre, and entranced the audience with a heartfelt acceptance speech:

    Kinky Boots is based on the 2005 movie of the same name. It follows the personal awakening of Charlie Prince, the inheritor of an English shoe factory that saves his struggling family business by manufacturing boots for drag queens.

    After the show, Lauper briefly took to Twitter to brag about her win:

  • Two Musical Collaborations You Need To See

    Did you know that Rosie O’Donnell is a drummer?

    She is, and she recently joined Cyndi Lauper onstage for a rendition of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, along with St. Vincent and Alexis Krauss from Sleigh Bells. The performance was for a benefit for Lauper’s LGBT youth charity, True Colors Fund, and as is everything that involves her, it was awesome.

    Apparently Saturday night was a good night for collabs, because Bush teamed up with Gwen Stefani for a rendition of their old hit, “Glycerine”. If this was the mid-’90s, my head would be exploding. As it is, it’s fairly rad. Check it out.