Before she gave the 1980s its ultimate party anthem, Cyndi Lauper was a runaway teenager surviving two weeks in the Canadian wilderness with her dog, escaping an abusive stepfather. Her path to stardom ran through bankruptcy, an $80,000 lawsuit, a lost singing voice, and profound trauma, all of which forged the fierce survivor behind the neon.

We reveal how Girls Just Want to Have Fun was a calculated feminist rewrite of a male musician's womanizing song, and how Lauper used vibrant pop to smuggle radical social messages into the mainstream. From pioneering the rock and wrestling connection to making Broadway history with Kinky Boots, this is the story of an activist who redefined women in rock.

• Her harrowing early life, the Blue Angel failure, and rebuilding her voice after a vocal cord cyst
• Becoming the first female art ...