Cyndi Lauper: Don’t Say A Woman Looks Too Old, And Then Call Her A Cougar

The contradictions older female performers face are absurd, but Lauper says to just brush it off.

Image by Charles Eshelman / Getty Images

Cyndi Lauper still wants girls to have fun — but she’d like for women to be able to do the same.

Speaking the night before her 59th birthday at a Kiehl’s event in honor of Pride Week, New York’s annual gay pride celebration, Lauper said the expectations and contraditcions that older female performers face are troubling. “You can’t turn around and say oh, she looks so old and then say what’s she doing, she’s a cougar,” Lauper said when asked about the criticism 53-year-old Madonna faced for exposing her breast at a recent concert.

“I think the most important thing is what you think about yourself. That’ll help you achieve anything that you want,” she added. “I don’t really give a hoot what anybody says or thinks about me.”

She admitted that being so self-assured is easier said than done. “Do I sometimes see myself on camera, and say I don’t look so good? Sure. When I was doing my autobiography” — Lauper’s memoir comes out this Fall — “I looked through [the old photos of myself] and I thought, what was I thinking?” she added. But she’s learned not to get too down on herself: “You have to be here now, in this moment.”