The Untold Truth Of Pink
Pink, born Alecia Beth Moore on September 8, 1979, has been making music since childhood. By 14 she was writing her own songs. By the late 90s, still in her teens, she was signed to her first label. In 2000, her debut solo album, Can't Take Me Home, was released. It went double-platinum and catapulted her to fame.
Since then, her career has been unstoppable. Married with two kids, Pink still finds time for her career, and for supporting organizations such as UNICEF and Save the Children. This superstar isn't shy to talk about the things that are important to her, but there's still so much about her that you don't know.
She almost died when she was 15
Pink makes no secret of the fact that she has a wild past. She started smoking at 9 years old. As a teenager, she experimented with drugs, nearly leading to her death from an overdose at the age of 15.
"Other people's parents wouldn't let me come over when I was a kid," she told The Guardian. "I was the s***head. No one wanted their kid anywhere near me. I was the runaway, I was the f***-up, I was the one that had the mouth, I was always in trouble."
Since then, she has turned her life around and hasn't touched drugs since her near-death experience. She told The People (via Mirror) that she's glad she got partying out of her system before she got famous. "I went off the rails before all of this, I got my s*** out of the way early before anyone knew who I was," she said. "I can't imagine having to go through stuff with the world looking at you."
She says monogamy is work
Pink and her husband, Carey Hart, have been together since 2002. Their tumultuous relationship (they broke up for a year in 2003, and nearly divorced in 2008) has had its share of challenges, but the couple have worked past their problems and now have two children together. The singer has been transparent about her relationship, and how it has influenced her music. Her relationship with Hart has inspired several songs, including the party anthem "So What," and the Grammy-nominated "Just Give Me A Reason."
"There are moments where I look at [Hart] and he is the most thoughtful, logical, constant ... he's like a rock," she told The Guardian. "He's a good man. ... And then I'll look at him and go: I've never liked you. There's nothing I like about you. We have nothing in common. ... Then two weeks later I'm like, things are going so good. ... Then you'll go through times when you haven't had sex in a year. ... Do I want him? Does he want me?"
At the end of the day, Pink believes relationships are what you put into them. "Monogamy is work!" she said. "But you do the work and it's good again."
She doesn't feel the need to define her sexuality
Many people have speculated about her sexual preferences, but Pink hesitates to label herself. "I've never felt the need to," she told the Advocate. "I still don't. It's just like how everyone's like, 'Well, what kind of music do you do?' And I'm like, 'I don't. I just do it.' And f*** it, if you can't understand it, I'm a mystery bag."
The singer had several girlfriends in her 20s. "When I first moved to Los Angeles, I was an honorary lesbian of Los Angeles," she said. "I wasn't gay, but all my girlfriends were."
She's raising her kids with the same ambivalence about labels. "We are a very label-less household," she said in The People (via Mirror). "Last week Willow told me she is going to marry an African woman. I was like: 'Great, can you teach me how to make African food?'"
She's passed on her potty mouth to her daughter
If you've ever listened to the uncensored versions of Pink's songs, you know that she doesn't shy away from swearing. With song titles like "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" and "F***in' Perfect," Pink clearly isn't afraid to use language that might offend some people.
It's one thing for a grown woman to swear like a sailor, but Pink passed on her potty mouth to her daughter, Willow. In a 2014 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, she revealed that her daughter, then three years old, had started dropping F-bombs, even after being told it was inappropriate. "She mutters it when she thinks no one's looking," said Pink.
The singer is more amused than anything. "But it's so cute," she said. "I mean, I'm not encouraging it, but come on, it's like this little three year old body and then just ..." and DeGeneres interjected, "Like a sailor!"
She is controversially candid about the president
Pink is candid about her political views, famously tweeting at President Trump, "I've seen people change and turn their lives around. There's still hope for you @POTUS. It's what the world needs."
She faced a lot of backlash from the tweet, with many of her fans misinterpreting it as support for the president. "It's always been very hard for me to tolerate injustice and inequality and racism and homophobia and sexism and all these things," she told NPR. "And I've been fighting my entire life against it, and to be misunderstood that way, it broke my heart."
She made it clear that, rather than being a display of solidarity, her tweet was a genuine attempt to reach out to the leader of the nation, whose policies she opposes. "I have seen people come back from heroin addiction," she said. "I've seen people come back from the worst kind of alcoholism. I've seen people that were abusive stop being abusive. I've seen change. And I have to believe that change is possible because if I stop believing that, then it's just a little too much for me."
Her political views shape her work
Trump isn't the first president Pink has publicly reacted against. In 2006, she directed the anti-war song, "Dear Mr. President," to George W. Bush. "I was booed on stage," she later told The Guardian. "I had everything but tomatoes thrown at me."
Political activism is in her bones, heavily influenced by her father, a Vietnam veteran. She told the Advocate that "it's always been sort of my game to see how far I can take [an issue], but also to make sure that what I'm saying is (a) totally honest to what I believe, and (b) worth putting out into the world."
As outspoken she is, Pink still thinks she could be doing better. "My dad's nickname is Mr. Cause," she told NPR. "I grew up listening to rock and roll and, you know, protest music. And I feel like with songs like 'What About Us' and 'Dear Mr. President' and even 'Stupid Girls,' I'm doing my part a little bit. It's very clear who I am and what I believe in. I've been marching and protesting. And, yes, I could do so much more. Honestly, I could do so much more."
Her stage name has nothing to do with her hair
Pink has often sported pink hair throughout her career, leading many to think that she took her stage name from her hair color. But Pink actually dyes her hair to match her stage name. She told Iconic that her name came from "a lot of different places — it's been following me my whole life." It stuck after the film Reservoir Dogs came out. She and her friends dubbed each other characters from the movie, and "they picked me for Mr. Pink." She explained, "Mr. Pink is like the smart sassy kind of guy with the attitude."
She believes in karma
Pink has publicly spoken out against Dr. Luke, the producer who Kesha famously accused of sexual and verbal abuse in 2014. "I don't know what happened," Pink, who has also collaborated with Dr. Luke, told the New York Times. "But I know that regardless of whether or not Dr. Luke did that, this is his karma and he earned it because he's not a good person. ... He doesn't do the right thing when given ample opportunities to do so, and I don't really feel that bad for him."
She also spoke out against Harvey Weinstein after the wave of sexual assault allegations brought against him in 2017. "It was shocking to me at first how many women came forward and I couldn't believe it," she told the Financial Times. "But I should be able to believe it. I love when women support each other and I love how much support people are getting now. Every time a new name comes out I just cringe. It's hard to believe, it's sad. Karma's a b****."
I never back down. I'm never not gonna say what I actually think.
Pink has always done her best to do everything on her own terms. Early in her career, her edginess got her dubbed "the anti-Britney." When she heard that Prince William wanted her to perform at his 21st birthday party, she wrote to him saying that it would never happen, because she disagreed with his "pro-hunting stance."
When asked by the Vulture if she could have spoken out about refusing to work with Dr. Luke if Kesha hadn't also publicly opposed him, Pink said, "Yeah, but I would've gotten in a lot of trouble. People give me s***. But it's okay, give me s***."
Pink believes that people tend to think of her as a "snarly" person because she's so outspoken "and I have a vagina," she added. "But I never back down. I'm never not gonna say what I actually think. I just have to listen less to the comments."
She trained to be an Olympic athlete
Pink is known for her trapeze acts, which are often incorporated into her performances. As a child, she trained as a gymnast for years, with her eyes set on the Olympics. That ambition came to an early end after she was kicked out of her gymnastics program when she was 12.
"I was an a**," she told The Telegraph. "I was really competitive. I wouldn't clap if I didn't win first place."
As we all know, the end of her Olympic dreams brought Pink down another path. "I was like, 'F*** you,'" she said. "'I'm out of here, I'm going to be a rock star instead."'
She feels beautiful when she's fit and healthy
Pink told Redbook that she's "always felt like the underdog." She said that she "was always considered butch," and was told at the beginning of her career, "You're never going to get magazine covers because you're not pretty enough."
To Pink, that's just one more thing to not care about. "I know my strong points: I work hard, I have talent, I'm funny, and I'm a good person," she said. She claims that joy, not beauty, has always been her priority, and that she feels beautiful when she's "fit and healthy."
"Or when I'm sitting on a mat and my daughter runs to me with complete joy," she said. "Beautiful has never been my goal. Joy is my goal — to feel healthy and strong and powerful and useful and engaged and intelligent and in love. It's about joy. And there's such joy now."
She dreams of collaborating with this iconic songwriter
A lifelong Billy Joel fan, who she calls "one of the best songwriters that's ever lived," Pink has tried to collaborate with him for more than a decade. "I did the Songwriters Hall of Fame 15 or 16 years ago, and I saw him and went over to him and I went, 'Hi, you don't know me, but I'm Pink and I want you to write a song with me,'" she told the Los Angeles Times in 2017. "He goes, 'I'm sorry, I can't do that — I don't write pop music anymore.'"
Pink, being Pink, kept hounding him. "I've never stopped asking. He always says no — he's kind, but he's firm," she said. He eventually agreed to "try it," but the results were not what Pink had dreamed of.
"The problem is he's too good for me," she said. "I clammed up. But we're gonna keep trying."