Here's something wild: before Pat Benatar was belting out "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" in leather and spandex, she was a classically trained coloratura soprano performing in a Christmas production of "The Barber of Seville." That's right—the woman who became the face of badass 80s rock started out in opera. Talk about a career pivot.

Born Patricia Andrzejewski in Brooklyn in 1953, Pat seemed destined for traditional vocal performance. She studied at Juilliard and was working as a bank teller while performing in nightclub cover bands when everything changed. In 1979, at age 26, she released her debut album "In the Heat of the Night," and suddenly a new kind of female rock star was born. Unlike the soft-rock ladies dominating the charts, Pat brought genuine aggression and power. She could actually sing—like, really sing—but she paired that operatic training with a snarl that made male rock critics scramble to take her seriously.

What's fascinating is how much pushback she got early on. MTV wanted her to be sexier, record executives wanted her to smile more, and critics dismissed her as too theatrical. But Pat and her guitarist (and husband) Neil Giraldo kept pushing boundaries. They crafted hits that walked the line between pop accessibility and hard rock credibility: "Love Is a Battlefield," "We Belong," "Shadows of the Night." She won four consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance from 1980 to 1984—a record that still stands. Not bad for someone the industry initially didn't know what to do with.

Here's the kicker that most people don't know: Pat Benatar basically retired from extensive touring in 1997 to focus on raising her daughters, refusing to be an absentee parent despite being at the height of her earning potential. She walked away from millions because she didn't want nannies raising her kids. When she did return to performing, it was on her terms—smaller venues, selective dates, artistic control. She's been with Neil Giraldo since 1979 (they married in 1982), making them one of rock's most enduring partnerships.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame finally inducted her in 2022, decades later than it should have happened. But Pat's legacy was never really in doubt. She proved that women in rock didn't have to choose between vocal prowess and raw power, between femininity and fierceness. She could be both, all at once, in fingerless gloves and high kicks.