{"id":38788,"date":"2025-07-04T19:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T19:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/38788\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T19:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T19:01:08","slug":"eighties-pop-diva-tiffany-looks-back-i-didnt-want-to-record-i-think-were-alone-now-but-my-girlfriends-loved-it-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/38788\/","title":{"rendered":"Eighties pop diva Tiffany looks back: \u2018I didn\u2019t want to record I Think We\u2019re Alone Now, but my girlfriends loved it\u2019 | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Composite of images of singer Tiffany in 1987 and 2025<\/a>Tiffany in 1987 and 2025. Later photograph: P\u00e5l Hansen\/The Guardian. Styling: Andie Redman. Hair and makeup: Alice Theobald at Arlington Artists using Charlotte Tilbury and Keeo. Archive photograph: Lynn Goldsmith\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Born in 1971 in Norwalk, California, Tiffany Darwish began singing at country fairs aged nine, before releasing her first album at 15. In\u00a01987, her cover of I Think We\u2019re Alone Now reached No 1 on the Billboard Hot\u00a0100. The single was taken from her self-titled album, which reached No\u00a01 in the Billboard 200 chart, making her the youngest female artist to top the US charts with a debut album at the time. Exploring rock and country, she has since released another 10 albums and appeared in reality TV shows including The Masked Singer. She has a son, lives in Nashville, and runs the food community Let\u2019s Food With Tiffany<\/a>. Tiffany performs at Retrospective festival in Merseyside on 5 September.<\/p>\n

This was taken in New York<\/strong> by Lynn\u00a0Goldsmith. I hated that my teeth were crooked, so I wouldn\u2019t smile in photos, and I do look a little self\u2011conscious. But I loved this shoot and everything it represented. I was 16, and transitioning from the cute, girly pop look to a more womanly, coming-of-age aesthetic. My hair and makeup looked a little more mature and sexy, which was kind of taboo back then as I was so young.<\/p>\n

When I got back to California, my manager saw the picture and went crazy. There was a big fight. \u201cI don\u2019t like that image,\u201d he said. \u201cAbsolutely not. Too sexy. You shouldn\u2019t have worn those clothes.\u201d Until that point, most photos of me were pretty Plain\u00a0Jane. I\u2019d get put in tutus and overly happy outfits; mainly it was just a jean jacket. All of which was very at odds with who I really was \u2013 darker soul, a\u00a0little rock\u2019n\u2019roll.<\/p>\n

I started out in beauty pageants and won Little Miss Norwalk when I\u00a0was just a toddler. I would come on stage and dance while the older girls were getting changed \u2013 I didn\u2019t have a routine, really, I\u00a0just kind of moved my fists and did my thing for three minutes. Even then, I was never afraid of the stage. I loved it. I loved music, too \u2013 I would steal my cousin\u2019s vinyl, and adored the artists my grandmother listened to, like Chubby Checker and Marvin Gaye. I was singing all the time and loved the way it made me feel. It\u00a0made me feel pretty.<\/p>\n

When I was nine, my parents had some friends who were having a get-together with musicians. My dad said: \u201cTiffany sings all the time. Get her up there.\u201d As soon as I started singing it got real quiet in the audience. The atmosphere turned weird. Why was a\u00a030-year-old woman\u2019s voice coming from a child\u2019s body? People didn\u2019t know how to respond, but it was clear I\u00a0needed to explore it further.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want to record<\/strong> I Think We\u2019re Alone Now when I first heard it. It was dancey, and I worried that it wasn\u2019t going to show that I could actually sing. I was 14, and I had this vision of me being Stevie Nicks or Janis Joplin. Then, one afternoon, I had my girlfriends over to do homework. I put it on and they immediately started dancing around. I realised there is something about this song that makes people feel good. Still today, it never lets me down.<\/p>\n

Naturally, my career became a little more intense after I got successful. There were compromises to be made, and it was isolating, because I was travelling all the time without family, friends or the routine of school. I was a teenager, up at the crack of dawn, doing promo all day, off to shows at night and then \u2026 goodnight! The band and crew would head to the bar, and I\u00a0was left alone in my room, not sure how to unwind. I immediately went into sadness, because I didn\u2019t know how to get rid of that pent-up energy. Musicians often turn to drugs or alcohol, but I took a lot of hot baths and racked up big phone bills.<\/p>\n

People ask if I\u2019m still singing. I try not to get insulted because I\u2019m living my dream, even if I\u2019m not No 1<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the start of my career, there were a lot of women who inspired me \u2013 Carol\u00a0Decker, Kim Wilde, Taylor Dayne, Samantha Fox. I watched how they composed themselves backstage, how they dressed, how they handled the audience. Standing up for myself and saying what I needed was novel until I\u00a0saw them do it. Even before I\u00a0was famous I had no voice. My mum was an alcoholic, and being the child of an alcoholic, you learn to cope. Anything that\u2019s going to make her day better, I\u2019d\u00a0roll with so as not to disturb the peace. I took that same approach to most of my career. To this day, I still don\u2019t fuss. But now I know what\u2019s good for me and I don\u2019t question speaking up.<\/p>\n

My third album was the first that included my own songwriting. Unfortunately it didn\u2019t have the right\u00a0support from the label. I think they thought: \u201cWe don\u2019t know what to do with her.\u201d One minute I was this wholesome girl; the next I am in a bodysuit with dyed black hair, wrapping myself around a pole in the\u00a0photos. It didn\u2019t sell well as a\u00a0result\u00a0of their lack of backing. That\u00a0kind of attitude \u2013 this confusion about\u00a0me becoming an adult \u2013 followed me for years. So much so that I waited until I\u00a0was in my 30s to do Playboy. Even then, people still said: \u201cWhat have you done? Where\u2019s the 15-year-old we loved?\u201d<\/p>\n

At 53, I still feel like I\u2019m finding my way as an artist. I\u2019ve done some albums and they\u2019ve got good reviews, but they are definitely not in the charts and they\u2019re not on radio, either, so people will ask: \u201cWhere did you go? Are you still singing?\u201d I try not to get insulted, because I\u2019m living my dream, even if I\u2019m not No 1. I have to remind myself: \u201cHow lucky am I to perform in front of an audience, to travel and meet new people all the time?\u201d<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m probably more body-conscious <\/strong>now than I was back then. My weight yo-yos a lot, and my lifestyle doesn\u2019t make it any better \u2013 I am a huge foodie. Maybe it\u2019s the Lebanese in me \u2013 all the\u00a0women on my dad\u2019s side are voluptuous, but my mum had three kids and she still had this tiny, perfect body. When you\u2019re in menopause, there\u2019s a lot of resistance to losing weight and the old tricks don\u2019t work any more \u2013 the Hollywood diets, eating\u00a0only cucumbers. Over the years I\u2019ve tried everything and it\u2019s not sustainable, so I am trying to come to terms with the fact that it\u2019s not about size, it\u2019s about how you feel \u2013 although I did just lose 15lbs through gardening. I was digging in the humidity of Nashville. At one point I took a selfie for Instagram, but the image of me hot and covered in mud was a real fright. I was like: \u201cTiffany, there\u2019s being real and then there\u2019s scaring people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another change is that I got tattoos. I have the word \u201cGypsy\u201d on my arm, because the life of a musician is very nomadic. My whole life is packed into one bag. Recently, I flew straight from America to Dublin and had a stopoff in the loo at Heathrow to get ready \u2013 using baby wipes instead of a shower, trying to add my sparkle and glamour in a tiny stall. I laughed at how absurd it was, but I was also thinking: \u201cBeyonc\u00e9 does not have to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

I also have a tattoo of a beautiful butterfly with jagged edges. I haven\u2019t filled in all the colours on its wings yet,\u00a0because I don\u2019t feel I\u2019m completely transformed. Maybe I\u2019ll never fill them\u00a0in. And maybe that\u2019s OK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Composite of images of singer Tiffany in 1987 and 2025Tiffany in 1987 and 2025. Later photograph: P\u00e5l Hansen\/The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":38789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-38788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114796513664131514","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}