-You brought me a gift? -Yes, I did.
-But you are the gift.
[ Audience aws ] -Well -- now you've got --
-You want me to open it? -Yes.
Yes, I do.
-I'm very excited about this.
Ooh, what could it be? It's heavy.
Is this honey?
-It's honey.
-Honey from Debbie Harry, honey?
[ Cheers and applause ]
Thank you for this. -You're welcome.
-This is going to be special honey for me.
-It's from my own beehives. [ Audience oohs ]
That's even better, right?
-Are you kidding me? -No.
-Oh, my gosh. Guys, check out my eBay account right now.
You won't even -- [ Laughter ]
No, I'm not doing that. -Okay, okay.
-I would never. I would never. I'm so excited about this.
Do you remember the last time we saw each other?
-Yes. -Because why?
The producers told you backstage?
[ Laughter ]
-No. -We saw each other.
You helped me out. -Oh, no.
-Yes, you really helped me out of a pickle.
I was at the "SNL" after-party for the 40th anniversary
of "Saturday Night Live."
And we were at the after-party at the Plaza Hotel.
And I was on stage singing with the band.
And I sang with Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift,
Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande.
And I go -- I saw you in the crowd.
And I go, "Do you want to sing 'Tide Is High?'"
And you're like, "I can't believe this idiot
is asking me to sing."
And I was like, "Sorry to put you on the spot."
But you came up and you crushed it,
"Tide Is High" with Ariana Grande.
-It's funny how people remember things differently.
[ Laughter ]
-Wait. Was that not what happened?
-Not for me. -Okay. Alright.
Well, I apologize for putting you on the spot.
But you crushed it that night. It was wonderful.
-It was totally memorable and it was a great night.
And an incredible party and a great show.
-Ended with us jamming out with Prince at the end.
-Yeah. -The whole thing was crazy.
It was just -- But thank you for doing that
'cause I was like -- I needed help
and you saw the desperation in my eyes.
"Please get up and help me."
You were like, "Alright, Jimmy, let me show you how to do it."
How was the tour? You're working on a new album.
Blondie has a new album coming out.
You had a tour this summer.
How was it? Fun?
-Well, we started, I think, in the spring in the U.K.
Then we moved over to, you know, to this country.
-Do you remember when Blondie first came out
and your first tour and your first big tour,
and you were like, "Oh, this is it. This is the big time."
What's the difference between then and now?
-Bigger audiences.
-Yeah, of course.
Were you playing bars back in the --
-Everything. We would play anything really.
-Anything you could, who would hire you.
I love this box set, by the way.
You did a great job with it.
There's books in here.
There's every vinyl. There's 10-inch vinyls.
There's every album. -Yeah.
-Do you have a favorite album? That's a tough thing to ask.
-Hmm. Maybe "Autoamerican."
-Oh, yeah. -I don't know.
It's hard because there's so many songs that we never play.
-But how do you just be this cool?
I mean, you were unbelievable.
Were you always -- Did you always have the --
"I know I'm going to be cool"?
[ Laughter ]
Did you always have -- as a little kid?
-No. No, no. I was very shy.
-You were? -Yes, I still am.
-Oh, no!
[ Laughter ] Oh, honey, don't be shy.
[ Laughter ]
I want to ask you because obviously
you became the face of punk.
You're the face of fashion.
Always fashion forward.
Here's you in a -- Here's why I like --
There's a funny story to this.
Because you look gorgeous, right,
but what is the story behind the dress?
-The dress was a pillowcase.
-This is how you end up being Debbie Harry.
-Well, I was much smaller.
[ Laughter ]
-How did you end up making a pillowcase into a dress?
-My landlord found it in the street and he said,
"Oh, this would be a good dress."
And he sort of, you know, held it -- he held it up.
And he said, "You know, just cut here.
And look, it's already there." -[ Laughs ] Oh, my God.
He found it in the street and gave you a pillowcase.
And you go, "Yeah, I'll make this into an iconic dress."
Wow. -Yeah.
-I wanted to ask you about another photo that you did.
You have ton of photo shoots and you look gorgeous.
But can you explain to me that you were on the cover of
"Wrestling Magazine."
[ Laughter ]
How did this happen? Why did this happen?
And what was going on here?
-Well, we -- I met this woman in my neighborhood while
we were living on 21st Street.
And we always said hello. Her name was Nancy Moon.
-Cool name. -And we got to talking
and she said that she was the press person, I guess, for --
I don't know if it was for the Garden or for Vince McMahon.
So, she said, "Any time you want to go."
And of course, Chris said, "You know, let's go."
So we went all the time.
-You were giant wrestling fans? -Yeah.
-And show up to all the things.
-Yeah, we went to hundreds of them.
-Just because you could get in? -Yeah.
Well, no, because we watched it on TV.
And it's much better live, you know?
-I just love that you're a giant wrestling fan.
It's so fun. How was Andre the Giant?
-Andre was very nice, very nice.
Very tall, as you can see. [ Laughter ]
And he shook my hand and my hand disappeared.
[ Laughter ]
I felt so short. I stood on my toes and it didn't help.
[ Laughter ]
-It didn't help at all, not even on your toes.
-No. -But this led you to working with Andy Kaufman.
-Yeah. -How?
Because he was doing his whole wrestling thing?
-Well, you know, I guess coincidentally, I don't know.
A play came over from the U.K.
It was called "Trafford Tanzi."
And Trafford I think is outside of Manchester.
-So, it was a Broadway show? -Yeah.
It opened and closed in one night, so...
-Congratulations. [ Laughter ]
That's a record. -One of those, one of those.
-I've never seen this photo of you and Andy Kaufman.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
Oh, he was a sweetheart. -He was?
-Yeah. -Yeah, he was really funny.
Unbelievable.
Reading through the books and looking through all this,
there's so many fun, cool things in here.
Little tidbits, but one thing, "Heart of Glass,"
one of my favorite songs,
originally, it wasn't titled "Heart of Glass."
-No, it was "Once I Had a Love."
And it was "soon turned out, it was a pain in the ass."
I don't know if it was "the pain in the ass" song.
-It was going to be called "Pain in the Ass"?
-And I guess it was when we started
having a record contract, they said --
-"Please don't do that."
[ Laughter ]
"Please change that lyric. Please."
-Can't have that. -Yeah.
And so then who came up with "Heart of Glass?"
-I think it was Chris.
And I think it was just, you know, his wisdom
or his, you know, brilliance.
And he just said, "Well, it's 'heart of glass.'
We'll say heart of glass." And then we found out later
that there was a film named "Heart of Glass."
-It's interesting talking to you because now I've known you
and I've run into you at different things.
But you come off so cool like, "Yeah."
But you're Blondie. You're Debbie Harry.
You're an icon. -It's all a mistake.
[ Laughter ] -It's all a mistake?
And who made the mistake? Us?
[ Laughter ]
Yeah, we trumped it right now.
I love you. I'm honored to have you here.
Please come back even if you have nothing.
Just come with more honey. That's all I ask.
Debbie Harry, everybody.
Blondie, the new box set right here.
[ Cheers and applause ]
"Against the Odds 1974-1982" available now.
Debbie Harry!
We'll be right back with Lea Michele. Stick around.