Hey, Rick Springfield — Don’t Talk To Strangers!
The 1980s heart throb, now 63, says he’s still hounded by obsessed fans and stalkers three decades after topping the charts with “Jessie’s Girl.”
“I have had private detectives put on me to find out what I am doing and report back to fans,” he tells The Post.
“People write me condemning letters about stuff they think I have done. Real judgmental stuff.”
“One guy called up wanting to know why I wanted to kill him. And I had no idea who he was!”
Springfield is the subject of the new EPIX network documentary “An Affair of The Heart,” airing May 15.
The film exposes his unique relationship with a group of super-fans — including a pair of New Jersey moms — who take time out from their ordinary, middle aged lives to follow him on the road.
New York Post: Are all your fan encounters pleasant?
Springfield: Not always. Some can be a little weird. But a majority are really awesome. I hear some great stories. People confess stuff to me because I have written about things, and they believe I understand [them]. I take it respectfully.
Any examples?
A girl told me that she had one of my songs as her ringtone and she got in a bad car accident and ended up in a bush. The paramedics said that her vital signs were going down and her phone rang and my song started playing and her life signs started to go up. They think that is one of the things that saved her. That’s not me healing somebody, it’s just the connection and the power of music.
Isn’t there a part of you that thinks these people are too consumed? Remember how William Shatner went on “SNL” and said “‘Star Trek’ is just a TV show?”
That is different because that is all pretend. My songs are about my life. And I lay myself on the line. I lay it out there. So they connect to that.
What happens to all the bras and panties that get tossed on stage?
I leave them there. I think they are tossed up with good humor. Back in the day when it was a lot of training bras, that was kind of creepy. Back in the 80s it was pretty funny.