Belinda Carlisle
Belinda Jo Carlisle (born August 17, 1958) is an American singer. She gained fame as the lead singer of the Go-Go's, the most successful all-female rock band of all time, and went on to have a prolific career as a solo artist.
Raised in Southern California, Carlisle became the lead singer of the Go-Go's after the band's formation in 1978. With their chart-topping debut release Beauty and the Beat in 1981, the group helped popularize new wave music in the United States. The Go-Go's were the first (and to date only) all-female band in history who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to achieve a No. 1 album. The Go-Go's have sold over seven million records worldwide.
After the dissolution of the Go-Go's in 1985, Carlisle went on to have a successful solo career with radio hits such as "Mad About You", "I Get Weak", "Circle in the Sand", "Leave a Light On", and "Heaven Is a Place on Earth". The Go-Go's reformed in 1999, and Carlisle continues to perform with them regularly while also maintaining her solo career.
Carlisle's autobiography, Lips Unsealed, published in June 2010, was a New York Times Best Seller and received favorable reviews. In 2011, Carlisle, as a member of the Go-Go's, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She and the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021.
In 2014, Carlisle co-founded Animal People Alliance, a nonprofit organization based in Calcutta, India, that raises funds and trains and employs impoverished women to care for street animals. "We are teaching people that animals have feelings," says Carlisle. "How to recognize a street animal in distress. There is a middle class developing and they still don't have proper vet care, so a lot of what we do will be educational. We're partnering with a hospital in Calcutta to teach about adoption and to get access to emergency rooms."
She told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2014: "I don't smoke anymore, I don't drink any more and I don't do drugs any more. I am very much into my Buddhism. I found turning 40 [in 1998] a real passage in time for me." Carlisle states in her autobiography Lips Unsealed: A Memoir that she has practiced Buddhism since 2002. She has also credited the practice with helping her maintain sobriety.