Belinda Carlisle: Touring with Green Day was one big hot mess – NME

Bernadette Peters.

CORRECT. The actor and Broadway star.

Yay! We were out of our minds on that show. We were sitting around all day bored, so we dipped into the booze and the drugs and by time we performed on live TV, we were a big mess. It was the talk of the country cause we were so wasted! [Laughs] But we still sold records after that because people loved us for being ourselves. It was quite a moment in Go-Gos history!

On the subject of SNL: former original cast member John Belushi once gave you a lecture on the dangers of drugs

He would come to the studio when we were recording [their debut album] Beauty and the Beat. We were out with him in the Mudd Club and said: Ooh, we want some blow!, and we had to get it FedExed from LA. It wasnt even that much a tiny bit and we offered him some. He always had a minder with him, because he had problems controlling himself with food and substances and when we offered it to him, he gave us a lecture: Youre going to be rich and famous one day and people are going to offer you drugs and drugs are really bad.. We just thought, as you do when youre in your early twenties: You have a problem. We dont. Well be fine. Its no big deal. We didnt take anything he said to us on board. And the rest is history! Within weeks after that, John Belushi showed up to our hotel at 1am when we were sleeping, asking to come up. He was on a total bender and wanted to hang out. We thought something was wrong, and it was the beginning of the end.

When INXS opened up for the Go-Gos in 1983, Michael Hutchence even warned you about substances

Back when that tour was happening, I knew I had serious issues. The one thing Ive always been able to do, even at my lowest points, is Ive had a little voice that I knew what was going on. Even as a little girl, Ive always knew there was me and there was a higher me. But what he said to me, I didnt take on-board either. I just carried on. Everybody was so disgusted with me. As anybody would say who is struggling, when youre ready is when you make your change. Everybody can give you lectures, but until youre ready, it doesnt matter.

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Belinda Carlisle: Touring with Green Day was one big hot mess - NME