Jane Wiedlin: Partners All Tell You About Her Unfiltered Memoir
Go-Go’s co-founder Jane Wiedlin has released TMI, a memoir about fame, relationships and living with bipolar disorder. She says the book gives her a chance to tell her story without hiding difficult parts of her life.
Jane Wiedlin has released TMI, a memoir about the Go-Go’s, fame and her personal life, saying her former partners would describe her as “a nut job.” The Go-Go’s co-founder says the book is her chance to tell her story without holding back.
“I’ve always been TMI!” Wiedlin says, describing the title as a fit for her long-standing desire to be candid. “This book is my first opportunity to do so.”
A candid account of her life
Wiedlin writes about living with depression and bipolar disorder, as well as relationships affected by periods of impulsive behavior. She says she has experienced depression since she was 11 and has made two suicide attempts over the years.
“If you asked my partners over the years, I think all of them would tell you that I was a nut job,” she says. “I can be very tough and hard on people.”
She has been married and divorced three times. In the memoir, Wiedlin says she wants to take responsibility for her decisions rather than blame others: “I want to take responsibility for what I’ve done and for who I am.”
The book also reflects on her tendency to please others. “As a mature woman, I have to really struggle against being the ‘good girl’,” she says. “I’m a people-pleaser.”
The Go-Go’s legacy
Wiedlin helped form the Go-Go’s in the late 1970s. The band became the first all-female group to play its own instruments and write its own material to earn a No. 1 album in the United States, a distinction it still held nearly 45 years later, the account said.
The group’s hits include “Our Lips Are Sealed” and “Vacation.” The Go-Go’s were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, and their music inspired a Broadway play and influenced artists including Olivia Rodrigo and Wet Leg.
Three other members—Kathy Valentine, Belinda Carlisle and Gina Schock—have published books of their own. Wiedlin says she loves them, but sees her approach to disclosure differently: “I just don’t feel that way. I don’t feel it’s honest for me to tell my story and not tell my real story.”
Wiedlin was speaking from Cancun, Mexico, where she had traveled to perform with Go-Go’s drummer Gina Schock at an 80s nostalgia music festival.
