If there’s one thing that can be said about Debbie Harry‘s career, it’s that she’s earned everything she has — sometimes twice. The singer, songwriter, and actress known for her cross-genre work in Blondie, the band she co-founded in 1974 with Chris Stein, first came to prominence with the band’s songs “Heart of Glass,” “The Tide is High,” and “Rapture.” Although the band achieved several hits in the U.S. and the U.K. between 1978 and 1981, Blondie broke up in 1982 due to creative and romantic differences between Harry and Stein. On top of that, Stein was facing serious health issues and the financial strain of that and mismanagement wiped them out financially.

In her 2019 memoir, “Face It,” Harry recalled how she lost nearly all the money she’d earned from selling 40 million albums because of bad management deals and tax bills. “Money had started coming in at last and it was our accountant’s idea that we should buy this place,” she wrote, referring to the five-floor New York City mansion she lived in with Stein. “The house was so big it had an elevator. Chris had his own studio down on the garden level, and on the top two floors there was a separate duplex apartment that we never went up to.” Then, the IRS showed up and seized the house and just about everything else they could find. “They took my car. They even took my coats — which was bizarre,” Harry wrote.

Debbie Harry regroups

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