CRAIG SJODIN/ABCBelinda Carlisle is looking darn good.
At 50 years old, the former Go-Go's frontwoman is one hot mama. Now she's getting in even better shape, because she's been training for the new season of Dancing With the Stars.
But that doesn't mean she's looking to show it all off again like she did in 2001 when she posed for Playboy.
"I wouldn't do that again," she tells me during a break from rehearsing her debut waltz with partner Jonathan Roberts at a West Hollywood dance studio. "I did that once, and it was really fun. But that was then and this is now."
Now means leaving her husband, Morgan Mason, and their 16-year-old son, James, at home in France and relocating to L.A. to compete in the eighth season of the hit reality competition show.
"I know this wreaks havoc on the body," says Carlisle, who gained international stardom in the early '80s when the Go-Go's released hits like "Our Lips Are Sealed." "But I do certain things to take care of myself. I do restorative yoga every day before rehearsals."
So far, she's been injury-free. "It's the chance you take," Carlisle says. "Especially for a person my age, you take the chance of walking away with something for the rest of your life. But I intend not to."
However, she has had some trouble sleeping. "Belinda has told me that she is thinking so much about trying to get the routines right that she's waking up at like three or four in the morning to go over them in her head," Roberts says.
Carlisle admits, "I was having a hard time balancing the mental with the physical…But after a certain point you have to let it go."
Besides, she doesn't want to spoil all the fun she's been having.
"I went to my fitting last week, and I felt like a princess, because I never dress up," she says. "I'm pretty much a jeans kind of person…But I kept staring in the mirror and was like, 'Oh, look at you.' "