’80s Pop Star Tiffany Reflects on Fame, Mall Tours, and Redefining Success in Her 50s

Erika Wagner; Getty Images

You can’t think of the 1980s without thinking of the mall, and you can’t think about the mall or music without thinking of Tiffany, one of the, if not the, decade’s most-popular teen performers, who honed her skills in shopping centers all over America, becoming synonymous with big hair, jean jackets, and screaming teen girls.

At just 16, she earned two US number-one hit singles with “I Think We’re Alone Now” and “Could’ve Been,” and set a record as the youngest female artist to top the Billboard charts with her debut album.

“There was something so fun about the mall tour and just being able to hang out with people and talk to kids my age,” Tiffany tells Glamour of that time in 1987 before the crowds became so enormous that she was “forced” into arenas. “We [eventually] were getting yelled at from store owners. So it was a nice thing to say, ‘Well, now we have to go to arenas.’”

But before there was ’80s mall queen and pop star Tiffany, there was young Tiffany Darwish, who almost embarked on a career in country music before the age of 10. “My parents were from Los Angeles, but they knew nothing about the music industry. I was kind of the oddball,” she says. “I just really loved singing and performing, so when I was nine, and my mom married my stepdad, he recognized that in me and was like, ’I don't know what I'm doing, but if you really want to sing, we'll give it a shot.’”

Give it a shot they did. Tiffany’s stepdad would pay local country bands in Norwalk, California, $50 if they’d let her sing with them. They’d say, “It’s a little weird because she has this huge voice, but she’s this little girl,” Tiffany recalls. Regardless, the red-haired youngster impressed the local musicians enough that they told her parents where she needed to go and who she needed to meet. “And that led us to Nashville,” she says.

Years later in the early ’90s—after the mall tours, the so-called overnight stardom, and the challenges that come with staying at the top of the charts—Tiffany returned to Nashville for six years. “I was a new mom, and I wanted to slow it down a bit, really work on my songwriting,” she says. “I knew that Nashville is where you cut your teeth, and if you can hang here, you’ve really made it.” When she returned to the country music capital in the early aughts, she decided this time it was for good. “I was determined. You get to meet a lot of great people and grow as a songwriter and as a performer.”

That tenacity paid off. The now 52-year-old has called the outskirts of Nashville, where she lives with her fiancé, home for the last 17 years. “I love it,” she says. “I live in the countryside and I’m very hippie-dippie. I love glamour, but when I’m not doing that, I love nature."

Ironically, it was there that Tiffany got the latest “Hollywood” opportunity in her colorful career. Her mutual friends, Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee Steve Dorff, and Michael Jay and Steve McClintock, asked her to record a theme song they’d written, and voilà, “here we are.”

That song is for the new movie, Ladies of the ’80s: A Divas Christmas, coming to Lifetime on December 2 at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT. Starring icons Loni Anderson, Morgan Fairchild, Linda Gray, Donna Mills, and Nicollette Sheridan, the film centers on five glamorous ’80s soap stars who reunite to shoot the final Christmas episode of their long-running daytime drama.

“Considering all the women involved and the ’80s history and the ’80s flair…I wanted to be a part of it,” Tiffany says. “They’re all my favorite ladies. It was a full circle, big honor for me.”

Ahead of the film’s premiere, Glamour chatted via phone with the singer-songwriter about revisiting that pivotal decade, her thoughts on Taylor Swift, and redefining success in her 50s.

Glamour: Your ’80s mall style was so iconic. Did you save any of your jean jackets?

Tiffany: I still have those. I work with Children’s Miracle Network and sometimes I’ll do a selected piece to help raise money for them. But I still have all my stuff. All my jean jackets are collector’s items and they go to my son. I have all my first tour earrings. I have some of my cool boots from the ’80s, the old-school stuff. And of course, all my jumpers. Once in a while I’ll auction something off for charity. I know that one of my jackets went into the Hard Rock Cafe, and then it went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for a minute, which was really cool.

You even had your own boutique at one point in Nashville, right?

Yes, which was so much fun. We carried vintage clothing, from funky finds to one-of-a kind pieces. I always loved being a part of the community. And I still have it now, but it’s online and called Radikal Redz. I couldn’t commit to the labor involved with having a [brick-and-mortar store], because when I decided to go back to music full-time, that takes you away from Nashville. My music is my first love.

So my sister and I kind of run Radikal Redz together. Of course, I’m the mall queen, so I knew a thing or two about shopping. Makeup artists and stylists would say, “Your collection’s really cool. Can I borrow this?” And my pieces ended up in a few magazines on shoots, and then my girlfriend was like, “You should really start to maybe rent some stuff out.”

Meanwhile, you mentioned your son earlier. He’s 31 now. Is he into music or fashion?

No. He is a structural engineer. He has a really good job. As a kid, he loved dinosaurs and Hot Wheels. And I was a tomboy, so I loved all of that, and I still love all of that. And I would come and start to play with him because he’d have all his stuff on the floor, doing his thing, but he’d say, “No. No, no, no.” And he’d put it back in a line. I was like, “Loosen up, Elijah!”

Too funny. Where does he live now?

He lives in Louisville, which is only three and a half hours from me. He and his girlfriend have been together nine years now and are just doing great.

A few years ago I was in Ogden, Utah, and as I was looking up information about the city, I discovered the Ogden City Mall was where you recorded the music video for “I Think We’re Alone Now.” How did that come about?

That was at the time when I was doing the mall tour, which started out because I recorded the album when I was 14. It came out when I was 15, right before my 16th birthday, and they were sending me to New York. I was doing clubs, but I was only 15. So I’d go out the door, back into the limo, back to the hotel, and that’s it. My label was like, “This is just not going to work.” So they thought of the mall. My rep said, “They have hair shows here and fashion shows, so why can’t we put her on a stage and just have her sing? And this is where her age group hangs out.”

What did you think of that idea at the time?

I thought it was a great idea because the ’80s. Hello? I was already hanging out at the mall. So that’s how the mall tour began, and it just started taking off. “I Think We’re Alone Now” hit number one. No one thought of videos or fashion for me or how we were going to really work this. We just rode the wave. And I was in Ogden, Utah, and they said, “We need a video. Come on, let’s do it.” And of course, we wanted to do what was real, which was the mall.

That’s amazing. What are you favorite memories from the mall tours?

I really had a good time. I made lifelong friends. I sang for 30 minutes and got to eat all the pizza I wanted without it affecting my waistline at all. Hang out and then go do another 30 minutes. And then I’d sign autographs. But then we got out of the mall tour because people couldn’t shop the mall anymore and we were getting yelled at by store owners. So it was a nice thing to say, “Well, now we have to go to arenas.” But there was something so much fun about the mall tour and just being able to hang out with people and talk to kids my age and walk around.

That's where my love of fashion really began…going into the mall and seeing all these shops and just trying on things. I mean, I was trying on things that I would never be able to afford. And then I started to be able to afford things. I was like, "Well, I want the funky purple pants over there." Growing up in the '80s, you took fashion risks.

Is there any part of the ’80s that you miss or you wish you could revisit?

I’m always about being in the moment, but when I look back on the ’80s, I think there was some kind of spark in the air that I wish we had [today]. I don’t really know what that was. It was in the music. It was in the fashion. It was in the discovery. It was in the technology. We hadn’t really had things before and we were rapidly getting them, but we weren’t spoiled like we are now. Our attention span is about half a second now, where before we really rolled out things and we waited for things. And I remember waiting for a Michael Jackson tour and it was on all the billboards in LA. And you waited for the album. That buildup was just crazy and fun. But now we just don’t have the patience for that.

Yes, things are more convenient now, but…I think we’ve gone too far. I used to go to the Topanga Mall all the time [outside of LA] or the Glendale Galleria, which was also where we filmed some of “I Think We’re Alone Now.” The mall was communal. You met your friends there. It was an event. And I don’t know when that stopped. I will say I went to Singapore in the last few years and the malls still rock there. So I was very encouraged. I was like, Oh, this is my soil; thank you.

This summer has been all about Taylor Swift and the records she’s broken which made me think about how you set a record in the ’80s as the youngest female artist to top the Billboard charts with your debut album. Do you often think about that?

It’s not something I really think about a lot, but yeah, as I see a lot of other artists currently changing the rules or breaking records, of course, I think, Oh, I did that, too—that was cool.” But I’m always a “what’s next for me?” kind of person. Not to be selfish, but I think it’s weird. People go, “Well, you accomplished all of this and yet why aren’t you doing records now?” And it’s like, Well, the industry changed and I changed.

But also being a child star, for some reason, that becomes a default. I don’t know when that happened. I’m pleasantly hopeful that we’ve changed that. I see a lot of these young artists now that have changed that. Some have had to do things that I don’t think were appropriate for me at the time, but being a girl one day and then being an adult woman the next, and having a very sexy image. I don’t know if you can really do a real gradual transition.

The industry, especially back then, was very good at pigeonholing talent.

It was just like, “Oh, Tiffany, isn’t she 15?” It’s like, “Well, no, she’s 20 now and she’s still doing music, and why is this a problem?” So I feel like somewhere in there, there was a hiccup. I left my manager at the time because I didn’t feel like I was growing in the direction that my fans were. And I tried a couple different things where I dyed my hair black, but they didn’t recognize me. I had to learn that I’m iconic as a redhead, and fans didn’t want me to change. But that takes trying. That takes a failure. That takes doing it because you want to do it.

I’ve done more rock now in the last couple of years. I’m an ’80s rocker. I love pop music, don’t get me wrong, but I had all the rock bands cut out on my walls, like Eddie Van Halen, Iron Maiden. And I love Stevie Nicks, Pat Benatar, and Ann Wilson from Heart. These were the people that I was jamming to in my room before I got a record deal. I wanted to be the girl in front of a band. And that girl still exists. So in the last five years, I’ve been doing more rock music.

How’s that been?

I’m with Deco Records. They’re a small label. We have minimal radio play because again, you have all the other amazing people killing the charts. So I’m happy with my lane and I am really great. I’d love to do other things. And of course, you want your music to succeed, but as long as I’m out there touring and growing, I am very happy. And that’s what’s been happening the last year and a half.

And you’re engaged now too.

Going back to the ’80s, I just didn’t get into trouble [with] guys. I didn’t marry another musician. I didn’t want the drama. I took my own path and I became a young mom, gosh, when I was 21. So it kind of grounded me, thank goodness. I worked on being a songwriter and doing other things. I have my own studio at my house called Red Brand Show, and I do a lot of recording here with my fiancé. I love the romance of [an engagement], so I’m not in a rush [to plan a wedding]. We’ve already been together seven years. We live together.

He’s my producer and co-writer, and we write with a lot of other people. So it’s just a real creative place, my home now. I’ve made all these things kind of my environment, finally. It’s really cool when I hear people say, “You’re really a lifer. You’re a true musician. There’s so much more to you than ‘I Think We’re Alone Now.’” I mean, again, it’s always been about the music. It’s always about that somebody liked it, of course. It’s why you do it. So when I have it now and it’s the new stuff and I wrote that, and it’s in this style where I feel I’m maybe shining my best, I feel like, “Woo-hoo, we’re accomplishing something.”

The music industry is fickle, but you have powered through and are still doing it. That’s success.

I appreciate that. I really do because so many times you’re just like, “Okay, what now?” Or you put your heart into something and it doesn’t get a chance. Or you have all these obstacles or people don’t want to give you opportunities…it’s truly heartbreaking. Because you’re just like, “Okay, well, I didn’t even get a fair shot.” But I’ve learned to overcome that and enjoy [what I can control]. I’ve always been a live performer. I love the live music experience, and I just take it to the road. I let the people decide. That’s what I’ve been doing with [my album] Shadows.

Who do you look up to and admire now?

I just recorded “Cardigan” from Taylor Swift. Cleopatra Records is doing a big Taylor Swift greatest hits album with a bunch of artists, and asked me to participate. I love “Cardigan,” so I was like, “I know which one I want to do.” And it’s really cool. I’ve watched her just take off and continue to grow into all things Taylor. That’s exciting because I think the first woman to really start to do that a little bit on my end that I looked up to was Madonna. She owned her own label and she got into fashion and was always pushing the boundaries a little bit.

And how did that inspire you?

I just didn’t take no for an answer. I was like, “Well, this is what I’m meant to do. I’m very young at 21, 22. So I’m not going to retire. I’m just going to keep doing music, and it’ll find its way and grow my fan base and do other things in between and try to enjoy my life.” That’s kind of been the plan.

I want Taylor Swift to sing one of your songs on her tour and then you join her for one of hers. Two women that truly broke records.

That would be fun. We could definitely rock out to “I Think We’re Alone Now.” That would be a lot of fun.

What’s it like when fans recognize you now? Do you ever say it’s not you if they ask?

I never really lie, but I always walk away thinking, “Why do you recognize me now? I have no makeup on. My hair is not amazing.” But I guess it is a compliment in some way. There’ve been times that I take myself through the grocery store after an interview and I’m all zhuzhed up and thinking, “I’m something,” and people just can’t be bothered. They cannot be bothered. And then I’m there literally running out to get Drano or something in my sweats with no makeup and they go, “Aren’t you Tiffany?” I’m like, “Okay, this is a humbling time.” [Laughs.]

Finally, what’s on the horizon for you in 2024?

I tour full-time. I also have a food club on Instagram. I love going to mom-and-pop places, or high-end restaurants and singing. It’s an acoustic experience, and then being on the road allows me to learn dishes from the local places. I do Tiff Takeovers, where you buy tickets and come to the restaurant. It’s just a different side of me. I am doing a cookbook coming next year with Chef Alicia Shevetone, who’s a big chef in Las Vegas. She’s kind of my mentor, and I love it.

I also get to travel next year. Germany and France and Italy are on the horizon, the UK, Scotland. I love cooking. I love working with people. I love learning different types of cultures and foods and the whole experience because I think food and music really unites people. We’re not so different when we start talking food and music.

Jessica Radloff is the Glamour senior West Coast editor and author of the NYT best-selling book The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series.

Originally Appeared on Glamour