Blondie’s Debbie Harry talks stalkers and how drugs can ‘help you’

nme.com

By Tom Connick – 15th May 2017

Blondie singer Debbie Harry has spoken out about her past experiences with stalkers.

In a new interview with Vice, the punk icon confessed that she’d “had several” stalkers during Blondie’s 43-year-long career.

“I’ve had a couple of ex-boyfriends who didn’t understand the “ex”, and that was problematic,” she explained further, adding: “On the fan level, I’ve never had anything really seriously bad. But there was one guy who wrote to me endlessly – I had shopping bags full of letters from him. And the handwriting was very tiny and cramped and I couldn’t even read them. So I handed them over to a detective and the guy was contacted. It turned out he was this tragic guy who had gone off his meds and nobody was paying any attention to him, so he wrote to me.”

Harry also divulged her opinions on drugs – both prescription and otherwise – during the interview. In response to the question “Do drugs make you happy?”, Harry replied, “Well, I think you’d have to be more specific about what drugs. If you’re on some kind of medication that’s prescribed for you, and it’s for some kind of a neurological thing, I think that they can help you. If you’re a partying fool and you’re just trying things, that can be fun for a while, right? But dependency on an illegal substance outlives the fun thing really quickly; it gets to be a real drag.”

Blondie recently released ‘Pollinator’, their eleventh studio album. Credits include Johnny Marr and Strokes’ guitarist Albert Hammond Jr, Charli XCX and Sia, while the record was produced by St. Vincent and Sigur Rós collaborator John Congleton. Later this year, Blondie will support Phil Collins at Hyde Park for British Summer Time.

Blondie’s new album ‘Pollinator’ is out now via BMG.

https://www.nme.com/news/music/blondie-debbie-harry-talks-stalkers-drugs-2072223