PAT BENATAR:  The Rocker Keeps Hitting Audiences With Her Best Shot
-Donna Freydkin

Pat Benatar may have won one of her four Grammys for the hit single “Love Is A Battlefield,” but it’s been anything but for the Eighties pop icon.  Benatar, 50, has been happily married for over 20 years to musician Neil Giraldo, and has two children with him.  That doesn’t mean she’s stopped rocking:  GO, her first full length album in seven years, on which she and Giraldo collaborated, hits stores in July.

 “The only thing we argue about is music,” says Benatar, now on tour with Giraldo and their daughters, 18 and 9.  “Our life is pretty mellow.”

 Benatar herself is one nervous bundle of energy who stays in shape by running, taking Spinning classes and lifting weights.  Even so, the body conscious singer, who’s been on the Atkins Diet for four years, also happens to be a skilled chef.  She’s writing her own cookbook and whips up three-course meals every night, even on tour, because it’s “very grounding and calming.  I bring all my pans,” boasts Benatar.  “I make sure the bus is equipped with a stove and oven.”

 It may sound low-key, but that’s exactly how Benatar, a tenacious trailblazer who paved the way for the likes of Madonna and Courtney Love, prefers it.  “Everyone gets a turn.  It’s the order of life,” she says, without the slightest hint of resentment.   “You can’t expect to be twenty forever.  You have to let it roll.”

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July/August, 2003