Tiffany, the pop icon who shot to fame at age 16 in 1988 with her cover of "I Think We're Alone Now," has revealed she was hiding a chaotic and turbulent home life behind her stage smile. Now 54, the singer reflected on her formative years while promoting her new cookbook, Poplife, and admitted she is considering penning a memoir to tell her full story.
Alcoholism and Chaos at Home
Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, Tiffany confessed that going through old photos for the cookbook stirred up many memories. "I've had to look for a lot of photos for the cookbook [and] doing that I thought maybe it's time to tell my story. Maybe it's time to tell people I came from kind of a turbulent home. There was a lot of alcoholism there. My mom, my uncle, my aunt, my grandfather - so for me it was a little chaotic," she recalled.
She described her family as "good people making some bad decisions," noting that when sober they were lovely, but alcohol changed them. "We were very close family, so everybody lived just a stone's throw away. But unfortunately, they landed on my grandmother's doorstep most days," she added.
Growing Up Too Fast
The singer explained that dealing with drunk relatives put her days in turmoil. "So, you had these crazy people acting out, who were drunk, that always seemed to put the day kind of in turmoil. It wasn't every day, but it really affected the family. So by the time I started getting a record deal I was kind of already an old soul because for some reason I had to handle these people."
She emphasized there was no violence toward children, but the environment forced her to mature quickly. "You tend to learn to walk on eggshells, tend to learn to stay out of the way or you tend to kind of micromanage them a little bit when they can't take care of themselves and so you actually become an adult," she said. "In my mom's case she was a little dependent on me... She used to tell me all her woes about her and her dad and my dad."
Influence on Her Music
Tiffany believes her home life helped her connect with emotionally complex songs like the ballad "Could've Been." "I was growing up too fast, I think. And then I'm in the studio and I'm recording songs like 'Could've Been.' And some for some reason maybe because of that experience I could really tap into those types of songs, the heartbreak, the mistakes, the letdowns, all of that," she said.
She fought for the song when her record label deemed it too mature for her. "They said: 'It's too mature for you?' And I said: 'Have you ever had a teenager in love? Like this is a heartbreaker.' So because I kind of plead my case, they put it on the album," she recalled. She recorded the vocal in one take, which she says is her proudest achievement. "That vocal is one take," she said.
Career and Upcoming Tour
Tiffany began her career singing with a country band as a child in 1981. She is now supporting Kim Wilde on a UK tour starting March 2027. Her cookbook Poplife is available at Waterstones and Amazon.
