WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA (April 3, 2024) – Today, the City of West Hollywood and WeHo Pride producer JJLA announce Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning artist Cyndi Lauper as the first-ever Lifetime Ally Icon at the 2024 WeHo Pride Parade. Renowned for her groundbreaking contributions to music, activism, and LGBTQ+ advocacy, Cyndi Lauper epitomizes the ethos of pride, inclusivity, and resilience. The WeHo Pride Icons will be featured as part of the WeHo Pride Parade, which will take place along Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood on Sunday, June 2, 2024. More information is available at www.wehopride.com.
“I love Pride, I love West Hollywood! I love a parade. I am very excited about being WeHo Pride’s Lifetime Ally Icon. Can’t wait to see you all there,” said Cyndi Lauper.
Lauper has been selected as the 2024 WeHo Parade Lifetime Ally Icon for her groundbreaking contributions to music and commitment to LGBTQ+ advocacy. With a career spanning decade, Lauper has left an indelible mark, especially within the LGBTQ+ community. From her iconic hits like “True Colors” and “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” Lauper’s repertoire resonates as a poignant soundtrack of the LGBTQ+ equality movement and beyond.
A tireless advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, women’s issues, and social justice, she co-founded True Colors United in 2008, a nonprofit dedicated to combating homelessness among LGBTQ+ youth. In response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Lauper launched the Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights Fund, housed at the Tides Foundation, to support women’s rights and health.
City of West Hollywood Mayor John M. Erickson expressed his enthusiasm for Cyndi Lauper’s timeless legacy, stating: “Cyndi Lauper embodies the spirit of inclusivity, unity, and vibrancy that has defined West Hollywood throughout its history. Her unwavering dedication to advocacy throughout the years, coupled with her unparalleled musical legacy, makes her a perfect fit for this moment in time as Lifetime Ally Icon as we celebrate WeHo Pride 2024.”
“We have worked tirelessly alongside the City of West Hollywood to recreate the Pride parade experience, offering more of a live entertainment show celebrating the richness of the West Hollywood’s LGBTQ+ allyship,” said Jeff Consoletti, Founder and CEO of JJLA, the live event and entertainment agency producing the WeHo Pride Parade. “This year’s parade follows in that tradition, celebrating the West Hollywood community with distinguished Icons front and center, as we continue to attract the tens of thousands of spectators to WeHo Pride’s most enamored program. We are ecstatic to have Cyndi Lauper bring her unique style and enduring commitment to celebrate and support the LGBTQ+ community in a city unlike any other.”
The WeHo Pride Parade celebrates diversity, love, and resilience in the heart of West Hollywood. Each year, Parade Icons are selected for their significant contributions to the LGBTQ+ community, visibility, community involvement, and advocacy. Additional Parade Icons will be announced in the coming weeks.
OUTLOUD Music Festival at WeHo Pride takes place Saturday, June 1, 2024, from 1 p.m. to midnight, and Sunday, June 2, from 1 p.m. to midnight. Details about performers at WeHo Pride Presents Friday Night @ OUTLOUD on May 31, 2024, will be announced in the coming weeks.
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About OUTLOUD
OUTLOUD Music Festival, created by Jeff Consoletti, launched in 2020 as a ten-episode series on Facebook in lieu of Pride Celebrations happening in cities across the country due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, quickly became one of the first major virtual LGBTQ+ showcases. Since its debut, OUTLOUD garnered over nearly two billion media impressions and won several industry-topping awards including multiple SHORTY Awards for Best Use of Facebook and Best Use of Twitch, a MARCOM Award & a Cynopsis Digital Award for BEST LGBTQ Series. Follow @OfficiallyOUTLOUD #
About the City of West Hollywood and WeHo Pride
For nearly four decades, the City of West Hollywood has been home to one of the largest Pride celebrations in the nation. Hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ+ people and allies from around the world make West Hollywood their regular destination during Pride. WeHo Pride will kick off on May 22 with its José Sarria Drag Pageant on Harvey Milk Day. WeHo Pride Weekend (May 31 – June 2) will include a free WeHo Pride Street Fair representing a diverse array of LGBTQ+ community groups as part of visibility, expression, and celebration; the OUTLOUD Music Festival; the Women’s Freedom Festival; the Dyke March, and the WeHo Pride Parade on June 2. The WeHo Pride Arts Festival will take place from June 14 – June 16. Additional information about #WeHoPride will be posted at www.wehopride.com as it becomes available.
Since its incorporation in 1984, the City of West Hollywood has become one of the most influential cities in the nation for its outspoken advocacy on LGBTQ issues. No other city of its size has had a greater impact on the national public policy discourse on fairness and inclusiveness for LGBTQ people. Home to the “Rainbow District” along Santa Monica Boulevard, which features a concentration of historic LGBTQ clubs, restaurants, and retail shops, the City consistently tops lists of “most LGBTQ friendly cities” in the nation. More than 40 percent of residents in West Hollywood identify as LGBTQ and four of the five members of the West Hollywood City Council are openly LGBTQ. The City has advocated for nearly four decades for measures that support LGBTQ individuals and the City is in the vanguard on efforts to gain and protect equality for all people on a state, national, and international level. #WeHoPride @WeHoCity
About Cyndi Lauper
Cyndi Lauper is a groundbreaking Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning songwriter and performing artist with global record sales in excess of 50 million. Her iconic voice, influential punk glamor, and infectious live shows have catapulted her to stardom. Lauper won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist with her first album, She’s So Unusual, and became the first woman in history to have four top-five singles from a debut album. Since then, Lauper has released ten additional studio albums, yielding timeless classics like “Time After Time” and “True Colors,” and the anthemic “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.” She has been nominated for 15 Grammy Awards, two American Music Awards, seven American Video Awards, and 18 MTV Awards. In 2013, Cyndi Lauper became the first solo woman to win Best Original Score (music and lyrics) for Kinky Boots. She contributed a Tony-nominated song to the score of the Broadway musical SpongeBob SquarePants and is currently writing the score for the Broadway adaptation of the 1988 feature film Working Girl. A pillar of success, Lauper was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015 and awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2016. She has also released a New York Times best-selling memoir, was honored with Billboard’s Women In Music ICON Award in 2018 and the inaugural High Note Global Prize issued by United Nations Human Rights in 2019. In 2022 her famous music video for “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” joined the YouTube Billion Views Club and the timeless longevity of her music continues to soundtrack hit TV shows and films, including Stranger Things, Reservation Dogs, The Goldbergs, and Young Sheldon. Let The Canary Sing, the definitive feature documentary film on her remarkable life and career, directed by Alison Ellwood, made its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival.
Lauper is also tireless in her advocacy work. She has been an activist since day one, always fighting for the underdog – especially women, people living with HIV/AIDS, and the LGBTQ community. Her commitment runs so deep that she co-founded True Colors United in 2008 to bring an end to homelessness amongst LGBTQ youth, who make up to 40% of the youth homelessness population. In the fall of 2022, in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Lauper launched the Girls Just Want To Have Fundamental Rights Fund, which was formed to financially support women’s issues in an inclusive way. The donor advised fund housed at the Tides Foundation will provide grants to organizations that advance women’s rights and health.
