This is my gift...

CYNDI LAUPER REFLECTS ON HER CAREER AHEAD OF THE UK LEG OF HER FAREWELL TOUR.

- NAOMI CLARKE AND CASEY COOPER-FISKE

SINGER, songwriter, actress, and activist - Cyndi Lauper has spent decades cultivating a career many dream of. Now aged 71, the US star is starting to take a step back from the spotlight. She has completed the North American leg of her farewell tour in recent months, with her final UK tour dates lined up for February, her first major run of shows in a decade. "This is my gift," she says reflecting on her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun tour. "This is how I wanted to go out. I can perform the way I've always wanted to perform..."

During her decades-long career, Cyndi has won two Grammys, took home an Emmy for her guest appearance in 90s sitcom Mad About You, and became the first solo female composer ever to win a Tony award, for Broadway hit Kinky Boots.

The New Yorker was catapulted to fame following the release of her 1983 debut album, She's So Unusual, which featured her feminist anthem Girls Just Want to Have Fun. It also included hits including Time After Time and All Through The Night.

She carved her own space in the industry with her punk glamour style and infectious stage presence, going on to release a host of studio albums, accumulating global record sales in excess of 50 million.

Cyndi reveals she was initially resistant to doing a farewell tour before she stopped and realised she had officially joined the septuagenarian club.

"I realised: 'Do it now while you still can, you don't want to be up there like grandma Moses'," she says with a drawl.