In the late '80s, when she was still a teenager, Debbie Gibson came to fame for her singing, songwriting, and, of course, her signature hats. The pop star had hits with songs including "Lost in Your Eyes," "Only in My Dreams," and "We Could Be Together," all of which she wrote herself. And while you may not have heard from her quite as much following her teen idol days, that doesn't mean she wasn't still working. Now 51 years old, Gibson has continued to release music and has also worked as an actor and appeared on reality TV. Read on to learn more about her life today.
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She's still making music.
Paul Natkin/WireImage via Getty ImagesGibson has continued to release music ever since she put out her first album, Out of the Blue, in 1987. She released her tenth album—and her first in 11 years—The Body Remembers in 2021. A single from the album, "Girls Night Out," was a hit on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart.
"I feel like I’m sitting at the beginning of this new chapter—at 50, but I really do feel like a wide-eyed teenager about this music,” Gibson told Billboard when talking about the new album. “I always had dreams of being in show business forever, making music forever. I always idolized Tina Turner and Cher for turning age on its ear in an ageist business."
She's also an actor.
Jesse Grant/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyGibson has acted over the years in movies, in guest roles on TV shows, and on stage. In recent years she has been in a number of TV movies, including Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, Summer of Dreams, and Wedding of Dreams. Last year, she also appeared on an episode of Lucifer.
As for theater, Gibson has starred in productions of Grease, Les Misérables, Cabaret, and Chicago. "My very first dream in life was to be a Broadway star," she told Stereogum in 2021. She explained that at the time she got her first record deal, she had been auditioning for musicals. She decided to return to theater in the '90s.
"Being on Broadway was a very deep dream for me. And it was more of when teen pop, there was a huge backlash in like 1990, 90, 91. The minute that happened, I was like, 'I wonder if I could revisit auditioning for Les Mis again,'" she said.
You may have caught her on reality TV.
Timothy Hiatt/Getty ImagesGibson has appeared on several reality TV shows over the years, including Skating with Celebrities, The Apprentice, and Dancing with the Stars. She was also a judge on America's Most Musical Family.
Gibson was eliminated second during her season of Dancing with the Stars in 2017, and she said that her participation was complicated by her Lyme disease diagnosis, which affects her nervous system. She told Entertainment Tonight that the "the unpredictability of the symptoms" made things "very challenging." She explained, "I've had days where I said, 'My ankles aren't working. I don't know what we can do today."
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She's outspoken about her personal life.
Bryan Steffy/Getty Images for SAHARA Las VegasGibson has never been married and does not have children, which is something she's opened up about in interviews. "You could go back and read old BOP Magazine interviews from 1988, and I was like, 'I want to be married and have six kids. I want to have three naturally. I want to adopt three,'" she told Stereogum. "By the way, I’m still open to adoption if that feels right in a year or two or five or 10. I have way more energy now than I did a decade ago."
As far as getting married, Gibson was in a longterm relationship throughout her 40s, but she and her partner didn't feel the need to have "a piece of paper," she told SiriusXM's Conversations with Maria Menounos in 2016.
Now, she's happily single. "Here I am at 50: I'm solo, I'm loving it and I don't feel incomplete," she told People in 2021. "I don't feel like I'm missing anything, so if I do meet someone, what a great place to be in to not be looking to someone to complete me in any way."
