Gloria Gaynor: ‘The Lord has given me the capacity to forgive my sister's killer'

Telegraph

a day ago

Gloria Gaynor, 81, achieved worldwide fame thanks to I Will Survive, her inspirational 1978 disco classic. Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1943, she grew up as one of seven siblings, with an absent father, in a poor family. It was a tough childhood and she is open about having been sexually abused on more than one occasion.
After her music career took off in the early 1970s, she released 20 studio albums. However, a disastrous marriage to Linwood Simon and painful surgery, due to an on-stage accident, tested her resolve. Throughout it all, she was sustained by her Christian faith and the positive message of her most famous song. She now lives in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Best childhood memory?
I draw support from the collective memories of my mother, who was very loving, caring, upright and giving. I called her the neighbourhood mother because she would mother and give advice to any child within her sphere. I loved that about her. I always tried to emulate her.
Best thing about finding religion?
It was 1982. I was giving a party in California in our hotel suite and we had all these people come along. When God found me, I was lost. I was drinking champagne, about to indulge in cocaine. Only God knows what was going to follow that. God stopped me dead in my tracks. I literally felt like somebody grabbed me by my collar, lifted my head up and looked down on me and said, 'That's enough'. I will never, ever forget that moment. It was so vivid when it happened and it's still very vivid in my mind.
Best thing about disco music?
It's upbeat and it brings people together. I always say disco music is the only music in the history of music to bring together people from every race, creed, colour, nationality and age group.
Best thing about your most famous song, I Will Survive?
I hope people will still be listening to that song in 100 years. I've tried not to think about how many times I've performed the song but I suppose it runs into the thousands. It's crazy, all the countries I've been to, the concerts I've done, and interviews and television shows…
The song was a moment of catharsis for me, and I'm sure a lot of people have had that same experience with it. It first encourages them and then empowers them to recognise the inequities in their life and set them right… or walk away.
If I didn't sing it, I think fans would probably throw ripe tomatoes at me. They would be very, very upset. I've had people refuse to leave my audience even after I've sung I Will Survive. So I can't even imagine if I didn't sing it.
Best thing about performing live at 81?
What gets me up for this is the response of the audience – the idea I am helping them, giving them hope and encouragement. That is my purpose and they always let me know I am fulfilling my purpose. They come to me. They write me letters. They contact me on all platforms of social media to let me know I am giving them hope and encouragement and empowerment and joy and fun. You could see this at a recent performance, at the Sani Festival, on Greece's Kassandra peninsula.
Best thing about being a gay icon?
It's just a part of my fan base. I don't segregate my fan base, you know. I have some old fans, I have some young fans, I have some black fans, white fans, gay fans. They're just my fans.
Best advice you've ever been given?
Know your own self-worth because if you don't know and command your own self-worth, no one can.
Best thing about never having children?
I have 23 nephews and nieces and four godchildren. I have their birthdays on my phone and at the end of every month I check the next month: whose birthday it is. I like to think I'm a good auntie. I have found a certain motherhood through being an auntie. Not only for my brothers' and sisters' kids, but through my friends' kids too. I am an unofficial godmother to many.
Best advice you've ever been given?
I grew up with a very wise mother and as a young girl, I didn't have any friends because I always listened to the advice of my mother and tried to share it with them; they really didn't want to hear it. The key message from my mother was: 'Do what you know is right.'
Worst thing about your childhood?
My father was not around which was the basis for my problems throughout my life. A father is where a girl gets her sense of self-worth. She gets her understanding of what a man is supposed to be like and what he's supposed to do for her, and expect of her. Not having had that, I had no idea how to interact with my boyfriends or even with my husband. It absolutely affected my relationships with men in later life. But I learnt to overcome that because God is my father. I learnt from his words in the Bible and that changed everything.
God has also graciously allowed me to tuck [certain] things away [Gaynor has spoken publicly about suffering sexual abuse as a child] in the back of my mind. I don't think about them at all unless someone asks me about them. I like to think the pain and the ill effects are gone. I've been retrieved from them. They don't hurt me any more because it has nothing to do with who I am, except that I was unprotected at certain points in my life.
Worst thing about your stage accident in 1979?
The accident happened because I was doing a skit on stage with my two male background singers. I was supposed to take the microphone, hold it by the head, whip the cord across the stage and they would pick it up – and we would do a little tug of war. Well, they caught the cord but they didn't hold it. When I pulled back on it, there was no tension and I fell backwards over the monitor behind me.
So I jumped back up and finished the show. Then I went home to bed, and woke up the next morning paralysed from the waist down. I fell on my tailbone and injured my lumbar. I was paralysed for an hour and I couldn't walk or move my legs. Then I was in hospital for three months. There was excruciating, unbearable pain before the last surgery, which was in 2018. I'm pain-free now.
Worst thing about being recognised by fans in the street?
If I'm interrupted in the middle of something, of course, it's going to be tedious and difficult. But it is a part of my career. It's kind of what I asked for. So you deal with it with a smile. In the final analysis, it's a compliment.
Worst thing about losing your sister Irma in 1995?
It was one of the toughest moments in my life. It really was because it was so nonsensical. She was trying to help someone, a woman being hurt by a man, and when she tried to intervene, he turned on her.
I'm glad the Lord has given me the capacity to forgive him. Not forgiving someone is like taking poison and hoping the other person dies. A lack of forgiveness tears at your heart and soul and doesn't do anything to the other person.
I turned him over to God. And actually, when he got out of jail, he got in touch with my sister's children and tried to apologise to them. He said he was really sorry for the trauma he had caused them. He was young and stupid and doing drugs.
Worst thing about getting older?
Certain parts of your body just quit on you. You try to do something and your body's like, 'Oh, no, we don't do that any more'. As a kid I used to jump rope and play volleyball around the neighbourhood. I really wish I hadn't stopped doing those things. When you become an adult, you really ought to pick up some other adult sport, like tennis or baseball or basketball. You need to continue moving your body parts, because if you don't, it's very frustrating trying to get fitness back.
Right now, I do CrossFit three times a week with my fitness trainer on a WhatsApp video call. It's helped me a lot, but I'm not nearly as nimble and active as I could be. Never stop exercising regularly.
But the very best thing is still having an opportunity to fulfil my God-given purpose. I want to stand before God and have him say, 'Well done'. And I know I haven't yet done everything he has called upon me to do.
Worst decision you ever made?
To marry the man I married. My marriage turned out to be a disaster because I didn't know how to set boundaries. I observed all of his boundaries but I didn't set any of my own. That caused my marriage to go into the toilet.