On Oct. 25, 1986, Cyndi Lauper hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “True Colors.” She took the top spot from Janet Jackson’s “When I Think of You” and held it for two weeks, until Boston’s “Amanda” moved up, according to Billboard’s 1986 chart history.
It was her second No. 1 after “Time After Time,” and her last, per the song’s history. The songwriters had offered it to someone else first.
Anne Murray Passed on It
Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, the duo behind Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” pitched “True Colors” to Anne Murray before Lauper. Murray turned it down, Stereogum noted, and American Songwriter tells the same story.
Steinberg had written the first version about his mother. He later reworked the lyrics to fit anyone, and Kelly changed the first verse.
“The melody and the words really stuck,” Lauper told The A.V. Club in 2011, as American Songwriter quoted.
Lauper Changed the Sound
The demo Steinberg and Kelly sent was a fairly traditional ballad. Lauper co-produced the record with Lennie Petze and changed the arrangement. Stereogum called the result “a whisper-to-howl synth-rocker.”
She was thinking about her friend Gregory Natal, who had recently died of AIDS, when she recorded it.
“I realized it had to be a voice that whispers to you, a voice that’s almost childlike,” she said on “60 Minutes,” as quoted by Stereogum.
The single came out on Aug. 15, 1986, as the title track and first single from her second album. Besides the Hot 100, it went to No. 1 in Canada and got a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The album didn’t do as well as her debut, “She’s So Unusual.” Stereogum says it sold about a third as many copies.
How the Song Lasted
“True Colors” became an anthem in the LGBTQ+ community. Lauper went on to co-found the True Colors Fund, a nonprofit working to end LGBTQ+ youth homelessness. In December 2022, she sang it at the White House when President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act. Billboard put it at No. 9 on its 2025 list of the 100 greatest LGBTQ+ anthems.
Phil Collins released a cover produced by Babyface in 1998. Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick recorded it for “Trolls” in 2016.
The 40th Anniversary
Steinberg didn’t get to see the 40th. He died of cancer at his Los Angeles home on Feb. 16, 2026, at 75, WFTV reported. With Kelly, he also wrote No. 1s for Heart (“Alone”) and Whitney Houston (“So Emotional”), and the Bangles’ “Eternal Flame” with Susanna Hoffs.
In September, Lauper released “True Colors: 40th Anniversary Expanded Edition.” It adds “The River Cried,” a Steinberg and Kelly song that was left off the album in 1986. A 2LP version comes out Dec. 4, RTTNews reported. Lauper said losing her co-producer, Petze, and Steinberg this year made the project mean more to her
She’s also selling clothes from that era. Bonhams opened “Cyndi Lauper: Suitcase of Memories,” an auction of more than 200 lots, on Oct. 22. One of the main pieces is the newspaper hoop skirt she wore while promoting “True Colors,” W Magazine reported.
