Jane Wiedlin published her 272-page autobiography, TMI: Memoirs of a Go-Go, on Tuesday through publisher Da Capo.
Their 1981 debut album, Beauty and the Beat, sold three million copies and topped the Billboard 200, as The Boston Globe reported. Nearly 45 years later, no other all-female group has repeated that distinction, according to the Guardian and The Boston Globe.
The five-piece band became the first all-female group that played their own instruments and wrote their own material to earn a number one album in the United States, according to the Guardian. Formed in the late 1970s, stories about the Go-Go’s make up less than half of the memoir, according to Rolling Stone. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021.
Wiedlin explained that other members of the group—Kathy Valentine, Belinda Carlisle, and Gina Schock—already published books, but said that those bandmates are private people. “I don’t feel it’s honest for me to tell my story and not tell my real story.” Her book’s contents were shaped by previous publications from her bandmates, including singer Belinda Carlisle’s 2011 book “Lips Unsealed” and bassist Kathy Valentine’s 2020 release “All I Ever Wanted,” which Wiedlin said impacted which stories she chose to include.
When organizing chapters between 2024 and 2026, she chose the group’s weirder tales. “Our Lips Are Sealed”—a track Wiedlin co-authored alongside her former romantic partner Terry Hall, known for his work with the Specials and Fun Boy Three—served as a catalyst for the group’s commercial breakthrough.
Her path toward becoming a musician was shaped by encountering David Bowie’s work at age 14. She was present at his 1974 Diamond Dogs concerts and later shared the stage with him when the Go-Go’s supported his 1983 Serious Moonlight Tour.
In 1996, after her husband returned home and discovered self-inflicted wounds on her arm, she began seeking care for her mental health, Rolling Stone reported. Throughout the book, Wiedlin details her struggles with bipolarity, self-harm, and suicidal ideation, which she experienced from youth onward, according to Rolling Stone and the Guardian.
“I promised myself if I was finally gonna write an autobiography that I wasn’t gonna hold back. I wasn’t gonna try and make myself look good. I wasn’t gonna avoid telling embarrassing stories, because I read a lot of biographies and I hate it when the person just spends the whole book trying to convince you how awesome they are, and they’re just squeaky clean, and blah blah blah. That hasn’t been my life. I’m not always awesome, and I’m a truth teller,” Wiedlin said.
Wiedlin has been married and divorced three times. “If you asked my partners over the years, I think all of them would tell you that I was a nut job,” she told the Guardian. “I can be very tough and hard on people.”
She became what her book jacket describes as the world’s first atheist ordained minister, a role she took on to officiate gay marriages and advocate for atheist beliefs, according to the Guardian.
Following the book’s release, Wiedlin is scheduled to appear at An Unlikely Story in Plainville on November 16 for a discussion and audience Q&A, as reported by The Boston Globe.
