Transvision Vamp’s Wendy James on scandals, reunions and her beef with Elvis Costello

She became an 80s pop icon – and a media hate figure. Now, reforming her group after more than 30 years, James recalls her painful path through through the music business, surviving ‘Harvey Weinstein-type’ situations, and working with punk’s finest

By 1989, Wendy James and her pop-rock band Transvision Vamp had reached the UK No 1 spot with their second album, two of their singles had been in the top five, and James, with her peroxide blond hair and fondness for lingerie and leather, had crossed the pop-rock divide as a cover star for both Smash Hits and NME. “I thought I was going to be bigger than Madonna,” she says, “and I was pretty sure I was going to win an Oscar.”

Instead, everything unravelled within two years: the band split up after their third album was poorly received, and James vanished from the public eye for a decade. She later built a solo career, and hasn’t wanted to revisit the past. “Everyone fucking reforms,” she says, sat in a cafe in Toulouse close to where she has lived for the past five years, wearing a black velvet jacket with that blond hair in a high messy bun.