Blondie singer Debbie Harry was raped at knifepoint early in her career, she reveals in her upcoming memoir, “Face It.”
In the book, the performer recalls that she and her boyfriend at the time, Blondie guitarist Chris Stein, reached the front door of his New York City apartment when a man “came up from behind us with a knife,” People reports.
The robber tied up the couple once they were inside and “poked round searching for anything worth anything,” Harry wrote. The thief “piled up the guitars and Chris’ camera and then untied my hands and told me to take off my pants.”
“He fucked me. And then he said, ‘Go clean yourself,’” Harry wrote.
The singer remembered not feeling “a lot of fear” at the time and noted she was “very happy this happened pre-AIDS or I might have freaked.”
“In the end, the stolen guitars hurt me more than the rape,” she wrote. “I mean we had no equipment.”
A representative for Harry did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for further comment.
Harry, 74, fronted the new wave band that produced four No. 1 Billboard 100 hits in the late ’70s and early ’80s, including “Heart of Glass” and “The Tide Is High.” The band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Harry also had a solo career.
“Face It” is due out Oct. 1.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.