In the wake of Blondie’s eleventh studio album, ‘Pollinator,’ released in 2017, Debbie Harry joined a chat with Vice, talking about specific chapters of the band’s history. When the interviewer asked her about the worst phase she went through in her career, the vocalist said:
“I don’t really know if I feel like I’ve had a worst phase. I mean, there’s been worst times… I guess there was a time in the second half of the 80s that was pretty awful.”
She briefly mentioned what happened during that period:
“It mostly had to do with when the band broke up, when Chris [Stein] was sick, when the IRS took the house. I mean, everything just went ‘Braah!’ That was pretty awful. But I guess I just wiggled through. And I really love Chris, and that was important, you know. I couldn’t have walked away from the situation.”
Harry later gave more details about those years in her 2019 autobiography ‘Face It: A Memoir.’ She revealed that her bandmate and then-partner Chris Stein went through rising health issues during Blondie’s world tour supporting its 1982 album ‘The Hunter.’
Combined with low ticket sales and the struggles between the members, the guitarist’s situation led the band to cancel the tour’s European leg and disband the same year. Following that, Harry focused on finding help for Stein.
The doctors eventually diagnosed the Blondie guitarist with a rare autoimmune disease called pemphigus vulgaris. He stayed at the hospital for three months, and the frontwoman admitted that she supplied him with cocaine during that time in her book.
“I think the doctors and nurses knew that he was high all the time but turned a blind eye because it kept him relatively pain-free and mentally less tortured. I was indulging, too, staying as numb as possible. I don’t think I could have coped any other way. Drugs aren’t always about feeling good. Many times they’re about feeling less.”
When Stein recovered and could go home, Harry continued to care for him and released a few solo records in the meantime. But while his health got better, other issues arose for the two.
The couple received penalties from the IRS due to the mismanagement of Blondie’s account:
“Unbeknownst to us, our accountant hadn’t paid our taxes for two years — the two years when we were making the most money. We didn’t just lose our house. The IRS took everything they could lay their claws on.”
Following these events, 1987 marked the end of Debbie Harry and Chris Stein’s romantic relationship. Still, they reunited the band ten years later for a series of festival dates in 1997.
