In an exclusive interview with Closer, Cyndi Lauper opens up about how she’s maintained a positive outlook on life even after experiencing a difficult childhood, and battling with depression and chronic illness in her adult life.

“There’s a lot of darkness [in life], but there’s also a lot of light,” she tells Closer. “I really try to bring a lot of light to myself.”

Cyndi, who admitted she contemplated suicide in the late 1980s, tells Closer that now she leans on her family’s love and support through the hard times.

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Cyndi performing in January 1984.

“I’m a family person,” she says. “I love the heck out of them.”

Even after a devastating outbreak of her chronic psoriasis in 2015, she refused to let that derail her life.

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“I had lost my voice, my strength. Yet I was still getting up and trying, while I was writing Kinky Boots,” Cyndi, 63, tells Closer.

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Cyndi performing in December 2014.

In addition to working on a follow-up to Kinky Boots, Cyndi released Detour, an album of country classics “I don’t think I have ever achieved greatness despite everything I’ve done,” she says. “But it’s not so much greatness, it’s happiness you need to focus on. Enjoying life is the best revenge.”

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“You have to stay connected to life and the things that excite you. Life is for learning,” she adds.

For our full interview with Cyndi, pick up the latest issue of Closer Weekly, on newsstands now!

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