A celebrated pop culture icon and one of the world’s most famous faces.
But given the turmoil of her childhood, she could just as easily have ended up on the streets.
From a young age, she was thrust into a chaotic, nomadic existence. Her parents’ separation marked the start of a turbulent childhood, with allegations that her father, a notorious Deadhead, exposed her to LSD at just three years old.
She was repeatedly abandoned by those meant to care for her, shuffled between the United States and New Zealand, and ultimately sent to a youth correctional facility at just 14 – but today, she is in a completely different place.
Some children with a chaotic and traumatic upbringing never make it out — but every so often, someone defies the odds and becomes a global icon. The woman we’re looking at today is one of those rare cases.
Met at a party held for Dizzy Gillespie
Born on July 9, 1964, in San Francisco, no one could have predicted the wild, extraordinary life that lay ahead.
She was the first child of a psychotherapist mother and a father who managed the Grateful Dead. Her godfather? Phil Lesh, the band’s founding bassist. And by the way, her parents met at a party held for Dizzy Gillespie in 1963.
Her family tree is a fascinating tangle of Cuban, English, Irish, German, and Jewish roots, with connections to novelists and screenwriters. She was even named after a character from a 1950s novel, foreshadowing the dramatic life story she would one day write herself.
According to her mother, our star showed signs of brilliance from an early age: “Her imagination was fabulous — she was always making up plays and stories. She had an amazing, creative, artistic energy.”
”I was actually doing a lot of children’s radio, and I was going to the Ashland Shakespeare festival camp for children that we have in Ashland, Oregon every year. So I knew a lot about acting as a child – I wanted to be an actress – I also wanted to be a rock musician – so I wanted both things,” our icon wrote in her memoirs.
Father gave her drugs
However, her early years were anything but stable. After her parents’ divorce, disturbing allegations surfaced that her father had given her LSD as a toddler, while threats of abduction added to the chaos.
”I was given drugs at an early age .. my father gave me LSD at the age of four [but] I don’t remember anything about it,” she once said.
“Her childhood was horrible,” her shared.“It was tragic. I couldn’t protect her from any of what happened to her”.
According to the star herself, she recalled that her sessions with mental health professionals started extremely early, saying, “I began seeing psychiatrists at like, [age] three. Observational therapy. TM for tots. You name it, I’ve been there.”
When she was nine, a psychologist observed that she showed signs of autism, including tactile defensiveness.
”When I talk about being introverted, I was diagnosed autistic. At an early age, I would not speak,” she said in 1995.
As a young girl, she was constantly on the move — shuttled between Oregon and New Zealand. In a burst of back-to-the-land idealism, her mom had made a sudden move to New Zealand in 1973 to star a sheep farm, separating her daughter from her stepfather, Frank, in Oregon.
Our star despised life in New Zealand and was eventually expelled from her school for misbehavior. She was then sent back to Oregon, but things didn’t improve — she was ultimately placed in a juvenile correctional facility at just 14, reportedly following a shoplifting incident.
But it was there that music found her. Records by Patti Smith, the Runaways, and the Pretenders sparked a passion that would eventually fuel a revolutionary career.
