By Keaton Bell, Vogue | Over the course of Cyndi Lauper’s four-decade-plus career, the pop icon has intentionally blurred the lines between artistry and activism. Her rise to stardom coincided with the AIDS epidemic, and, Lauper — a neon-haired free spirit — distinguished herself through her continued commitment to the LGBTQ+ community. For her second album True Colors, Lauper wrote the melancholic “Boy Blue” as a tribute to a childhood friend named Gregory Natal who’d recently succumbed to the disease. While promoting the single in 1987, she made the radical move to donate its proceeds to AIDS organizations.
“I was told it was an unpopular cause but I’ve really only ever believed in unpopular causes,” Lauper recently told Vogue. “I’ve always seen my job as trying to shed light where there’s darkness. Where there is no love, you give love, right?”
Lauper continued to give back in 2008 when she co-founded True Colors United, an organization that aims to prevent and end homelessness among LGBTQ+ youth. Through an array of initiatives including community organizing and public engagement, the non-profit advocates for research and funding to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ youth in America, who are 120% more likely than their peers to end up on the streets or in unstable housing.
This week, Lauper is launching the organization’s tenth annual Cyndi Lauper & Friends: Home for the Holidays benefit concert. Presented in the past as a live event at the Beacon Theater, this year’s virtual line-up will premiere this Friday, December 11 exclusively on TikTok at 8 PM ET (with additional streams on Lauper’s YouTube and Facebook handles the following Sunday, December 13). The concert is True Colors United’s biggest fundraising event of the year, with 100% of the proceeds from the virtual extravaganza supporting the non-profit’s work.
Ahead of the benefit’s premiere this Friday, Lauper spoke to Vogue about putting together her first virtual Home for the Holidays, the legacy of the “True Colors” song, and working with the United Nations on their latest PSA.
Read the rest of the story here:
https://www.vogue.com/article/cyndi-lauper-virtual-benefit-concert-to-end-lgbtq-youth-homelessness
https://truecolorsunited.org/homefortheholidays/
Home for the Holidays is a 21st century virtual concert experience. Unite with Cyndi Lauper and her friends for a star-studded evening to end homelessness among LGBTQ youth.