For years, fans of the Go-Go’s wondered why the band that changed what women could do in rock had to wait so long for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Their lead singer always had a theory, and she is now stating it plainly: a few voters simply didn’t want them there.
Belinda Carlisle, 68, revisited the band’s long road to induction on a recent episode of Music Makes Us, the Hall’s own podcast, hosted by Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill. “I think there were a couple of people like that who were really, didn’t want us to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” she said. “They had personal beefs.”
The Go-Go’s became eligible in 2006 and were finally inducted 15 years later, with Drew Barrymore presenting the honor at the October 2021 ceremony in Cleveland. Carlisle called it “one of the best nights of our lives,” but added that “it was a long time coming.”
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The theory is not a new one for the singer. In 2018, she said the snub was “sexist or political” and recalled a remark that had reached her: “I’ve heard, ‘Over my dead body will The Go-Go’s ever be in the Hall of Fame.'” Two years later, she told Yahoo Entertainment, “I do think it’s personal.”
Bassist Kathy Valentine has backed her bandmate up. “I thought we deserved it,” Valentine said, arguing that the group “had accomplished something that no one else had accomplished,” even with fewer records and hits than many inductees. She also said the late Blondie drummer Clem Burke, a longtime champion of the band, told her who stood in the way. Valentine declined to name them. Burke died in April 2025 at age 70.
That accomplishment remains unmatched. The group grew out of the Los Angeles punk scene in 1978 and became the first and only all-female band to write their own songs, play their own instruments and score a No. 1 album. Their debut, Beauty and the Beat, reached the top of the Billboard album chart on March 6, 1982, and stayed there for six consecutive weeks, the longest run at No. 1 for any girl group album.
Both women say the wait has not dimmed their pride in the honor. Valentine called the induction “one of the best nights of my entire career, hands down.”
The Go-Go’s story also fits a larger pattern. The Hall drew years of criticism for overlooking women artists, and more women have appeared among its recent classes. Carlisle once described the band’s beginnings as “five of us kids sitting on a curb,” with virtually no musical experience among them.
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