Paule Cole Defies the Puritans

In 1998 there was a big hue and cry when the Australian singer Paula Cole appeared to receive the Grammy Awards showing armpits hair! One columnist says " the singer's armpit hair was the second most-talked-about tidbit following last month's Grammy Awards!"

The Entertainment Weekly airbrushed her pithair before publishing the picture! From her side Paula Cole wrote a terse letter to teh Weekly asking them why they have done so. "I was surprised. I was shocked," says Cole over the phone from her home in New York, in a thin voice that you'd never recognize from her ultra-clear singing. "The only thing I don't understand is the negativity, and that seems to come more from women. Men don't care as much, because it's natural."

Here is a (third class) comment and advice from one of the self-procliamed champions of 20th century progress and culture: " Paula, don't get us wrong, we respect you as a talented vocalist, but please, for the good of your fellow man and for the love of personal hygiene, attend to the pits.  I realize that this is the nineties, but people just aren't open minded enough yet to accept an unshaven pit.  ...  But sorry, Paula, society just isn't ready for the audacity of the unshaven pit. " [Quoted from a Web Page]

One writer called here "hirsute hippy chick, post-feminist songstress" and the event as "the Great Armpit Kerfuffle or the Fluffy Armpit Grate Or the Pithy 'Pit-hair Debate of 1998."

In reality, it was neither of those things. A girl just used here freedom to shave or not to shave. It was made an issue (or debacle) by the puritans! Some even wondered if she had just forgotten to shave. But she had appeared in public with armpits hair before and after! Here are some shots:

Sensational Grammy Award Scene (above)
From an open concert	From another open concert
Beautiful pithair and navels too!