How Debbie Harry keeps her Blondie bombshell looks at 80: Singer has barely aged a day
Blondie's lead singer celebrated her 80th birthday on July 1st
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By JO TWEEDY – 2nd July 2025
As lead singer of one of America’s most famous rock bands, who shot to fame in the drug-drenched 1970s, Debbie Harry is as surprised as anyone that she’s still thriving at 80.
Yet the star, who was born on July 1st 1945 and regularly partied with Andy Warhol, continues to defy her years and is still a regular sight at fashion shows, premieres and on stage belting out the band’s biggest hits, including Call Me, Atomic and Heart of Glass.
Despite once battling her own drug addiction, which saw her check into rehab with Blondie co-founder and her then lover Chris Stein, the newly-minted octogenarian has survived where many of her peers haven’t.
In New York last month, an appearance at the Tribeca Festival saw her looking as cool as ever, sporting skinny black jeans, towering wedge sandals with blue nail polish, a pair of Ray-Bans and a Bob Dylan-style flat cap.
And on the FROW at the Gucci show at London’s Tate Modern in December, she sported a oxblood leather jacket and matching loafers, taking a pew next to Demi Moore and Kate Moss.
The Florida-born, New Jersey-raised singer became one of pop’s biggest pin-ups thanks to her feline looks, which she enhanced with a peroxide blonde mane, smokey eye make-up and a carousel of exuberant stage outfits.
Through the decades, Harry has been frank about the ageing process – including experimenting with cosmetic surgery to keep that exquisite bone structure in tact.
The One Way or Another singer has maintained her sobriety too, but her youthful spirit clearly plays a part in her raging into her ninth decade -‘I’m pretty clean,’ she once said, ‘But I have a dirty mind.’
She reflected last year that age is only a number, saying: ‘My mother used to say in her head she was 25 and I’m the same.
‘But thinking about it all the time could be your downfall. I don’t really want the same kind of life I did when I was younger. I’ve done that!’
Harry added at the time: ‘That’s the beauty of ageing – you know what it’s about. You have it in your heart and soul and your memory bank…’
PLASTIC SURGERY IS THE ‘SAME AS A FLU SHOT’
In her 2019 memoir, Face It, Harry told fans that she hasn’t shied away from nips and tucks to preserve her bombshell looks – including her famous cheekbones, saying: ‘I have never hidden the fact that I’ve had plastic surgery. I think it’s the same as having a flu shot basically.’
She added that ‘getting older is hard on your looks. Like everybody else, I have good days, bad days and those “S—, I hope nobody sees me today” days.’
When the star was in her early sixties she revealed that going under the knife was simply a way of her preserving her career, saying: ‘Yeah, I had a facelift years ago. Why not? It gives you all the things you need to be part of the action.’
‘Everybody knows that I’ve had plastic surgery. I did it for business reasons.
‘You photograph better, and looks are a key part of being an entertainer, so I felt it was something I had to do.’
Why cosmetic enhancements have worked so well for the 80-year-old star, who sold more than 40 million records with Blondie, is that they haven’t changed her look significantly say experts.
Anti-ageing aesthetic specialist Dr Razvan Vasilas, who’s based in London, says Harry is ‘a great example of what happens when someone takes care of their skin and utilises a measured approach to any aesthetic work.’
He says that the singer clearly appreciates that looking younger isn’t always the endgame and that he’s had people ask to look like Debbie Harry because she’s managed to maintain ‘so much of her signature look’ – the cheekbones and lips remain as striking as ever, but not over-pumped.
Dr Vasilas says: ‘Anti-ageing shouldn’t be the goal because ageing is a gift. The trick is to age and look like the best version of yourself at whatever age you are and to be intentionally kind to your body as its needs change.’
A FASHION ICON AT 80 – AND SIGNATURE MAKE-UP
In a notoriously ageist industry, Harry has managed to remain relevant – last year, she bagged one of the biggest fashion collaborations of her career so far.
In September, Gucci announced it would be naming a handbag after her and the then 79-year-old posed up a storm in a London cab with the subsequent $3,900 Gucci Blondie ‘Small Top Handle Bag.’
Gucci creative director Sabato De Sarno gushed at the time: ‘What I like the most about Debbie Harry is her irreverence. She is a free spirit in her choices, and she is still an icon.’
Fashion stylist Angela Kyte, who’s worked with major couture brands agrees, saying: ‘Debbie Harry has never subscribed to the rulebook, and her style is no exception.
‘As she enters her ninth decade, she continues to dress with the same fearless energy that made her an icon in the first place.
‘There’s nothing apologetic about the way she shows up, and that in itself is revolutionary.’
Kyte says refusing to ‘dilute her identity with age’ is key to her still looking sartorially sharp at 80.
‘She wears what she loves, not what’s “appropriate”, and in doing so, she’s created space for women to age with power and playfulness.
‘She proves that personal style doesn’t expire, it evolves.
‘Seeing Debbie fronting a luxury campaign in her seventies, styled with bold colours and metallics, reminded the world that style is about spirit, not age.
‘I particularly loved the sequined Gucci look she wore, it was punk-meets-high-fashion, completely her, and completely defiant. That’s Debbie: subversive, stylish, and still setting the agenda.’
When it comes to her make-up too, Harry has remained true to the original looks that shot her to fame. British make-up artist Stef Wright says not deviating from a classic look has worked for her.
Gen Z-ers have dedicated hours of TikTok and YouTube time to perfectly recreating the classic Seventies look of black kohl and metallic eye shadow, which Harry still loves.
Says Wright: ‘She looks incredible. Although her make up accentuates all her features beautifully anyway, what she shows is that your make-up shouldn’t change to reflect your age.
‘It should feel good for you whether you’re 20, 50 or 80. Whether that’s no make-up or a smokey eye and glossy lip.’
KEEPING FIT WITH ‘OLD LADY EXERCISES’
The pop icon credits performing – Blondie still regularly tours – with keeping her fit, saying that the creaks of ageing disappear when she’s in front of a crowd with a microphone in hand.
The 80s, she has previously said, were her ‘ice cream years’ where she turned to the sweet stuff to get her through mental health problems and the band being dropped.
She told The Times in 2011: ‘It was depression, the culmination of the stuff I told you about.
‘Our record company dropped us, our manager walked out, the IRS walked in, Chris was recovering. Everything fell apart and I fell apart with it. But ice cream was great!’
She told The Telegraph last year though that performing live was still a health boost, sharing: ‘When I walk onstage every little ache and pain just disappears, even if I have a cold.’
Conventional exercise doesn’t cut the mustard it seems, although she’s had a go at every fad going, saying: ‘I’ve tried everything at some point.’
She puts her youthful appearance down to speed walking with her beloved Russian Chin dogs and doing age-appropriate exercise, saying: ‘I’m practically vegetarian and I do old lady exercises, which is shocking to me. I mean how have I got so old? But I guess I’ve been lucky.’
The star has previously said she follows a strict regime to keep her famous figure in check, telling Bon Appetit in 2017 that her signature dish would be ‘clean things’ – and that she never orders takeaways, even when on the road.
She said: ‘Because I’m so weight-conscious, I’ve grown accustomed to salads and raw foods. It’s nothing that falls into the category of fine dining – or even cooking – but making a good salad dressing is an art.’
FAREWELL TO THE FLAXEN: EMBRACING THE GREY
The Call Me singer has flirted with grey hair before, ditching her signature platinum look in the early noughties…before reaching for the blonde hair dye once more.
The star said being blonde was her first act of rebellion against her adopted parents, saying: ‘I started dyeing my hair in grade school. My mother became instantly suspicious, and I said, “Oh no, it’s the sun, it’s the sun!”
‘Going blonde was considered naughty at that time, which was very exciting for a young girl like me. I think it was a combination of wanting to look exciting and be part of the blonde heat wave that was going on.’
When Harry walked through the New York streets in the early 70s, she was frequently cat-called ‘Blondie’ and her and Chris Stein decided that it would make a great name for a band.
She said later: ‘I told the guys [in the band] that they should all bleach their hair, but they absolutely refused.’
She was still flaxen throughout much of her 70s, after rediscovering the colour that coined the band’s name, but has embraced a softer grey in the years before her 80th.
Peroxide is out for good it seems, she said of ammonia recently: ‘It burns my hair terribly. But I’ve had to bleach my hair for, well… a very long time, so it’s not done too badly considering. I swear by Viviscal hair vitamins and Wen’s cream conditioner that doesn’t contain soap.’
