"Bad Girls" is a song by American singer Donna Summer from her 1979 seventh studio album of the same name, released as the second single from the Bad Girls album on June 23, 1979, through Casablanca Records. The song was produced by Summer's regular collaborators Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, and co-written by Summer and the Brooklyn Dreams.
"Bad Girls" became a worldwide success, peaking within the top-ten in seven countries, including Spain and New Zealand. In the United States, it spent five weeks at number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold over two million copies, simultaneously becoming, alongside "Hot Stuff", her most successful single. The single, which was the second-biggest song of 1979, also helped the Bad Girls album to reach the multi-platinum status in the US. Summer placed three songs in the Top 12 of the Billboard 1979 year-end charts.
The inspiration for Summer to write the song came after one of her assistants was offended by a police officer who thought she was a street prostitute. A rough version of the song had originally been written a couple of years before its release. Casablanca Records' founder Neil Bogart, upon hearing it, wanted Summer to give it to Cher for her upcoming album. Summer refused and put it away for a couple of years.
A 12" version of the song was released as a medley with "Hot Stuff". Although "Hot Stuff" was extended for the 12" version, "Bad Girls" remained in the four minutes, fifty-five seconds album version. A "Bad Girls" 12" version with a length of almost seven minutes was produced but never released commercially. A demo version of the song was released on the "deluxe edition" of Bad Girls.
Trinu and the Burger Queens covered the song.
A remix of this song by Juliet Roberts appears in the 1999 music video game arcade Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMix. She covered this song as a no. 17 UK hit.
Cheryl Chase, Kevin Michael Richardson, Billy West, and Tim Curry covered the song in 2000 for Rugrats in Paris: The Movie.
Jeffree Star covered the song in 2010 for the MTV original movie Turn the Beat Around soundtrack extended play.
Sasha Allen sung the song on The Voice.
Jamiroquai covered the song in live shows. They performed the song as a duet with Anastacia at the 2002 Brit Awards; this performance was included as a B-side on one of the releases of their single Corner of the Earth.
Its "toot-toot, beep-beep" chant would be sampled by hip hop and R&B artists, most notably by R. Kelly on the remix to "Ignition" and his ex-wife Aaliyah and Missy Elliott on their track "Ladies in Da House", a deep cut from her 1996 album One in a Million.
The "toot-toot, beep-beep" chant was also used for Miranda!'s Mirandamix from their 2008 Album 'El Templo Del Pop'.
The chorus was sampled in Lil Kim's unreleased song 'Bad Girl' in which RuPaul takes Summer's part.
The last missive from Late Nite Tuff Guy in 2015 is a Disco edit of Summer‘s "Bad Girls", entitled "Do U Wanna Get Down".
A segment of the song was used on the Homicide: Life on the Street episode "A Many Splendored Thing."
In 1999, John Cleese danced to the song's tune wearing ladies clothes in the remake of The Out-of-Towners.
In 2000, Cheryl Chase, Kevin Michael Richardson, Billy West, and Tim Curry covered the song in the animated movie Rugrats in Paris. Chase did the voice of Angelica singing the song and most of the lyrics were changed in order to make the song appropriate for kids. Instead of street hookers, the theme of it was misbehaved and spoiled children.
The song was also featured in the 2005 trailer for Monster-in-Law.
The song was also featured in a scene of the 2000 movie The Replacements.
The song was also featured in a scene of the TV series Sex and the City in the third-season episode "Where There's Smoke...".
The song was also featured in a scene of the TV series Ugly Betty in the first-season episode "Four Thanksgivings and a Funeral".
In 2004, the song was the theme to the TV show Bad Girls Most Wanted on ITV 1, hosted by Jack Ellis aka Jim Fenner.
The song was used in the lip sync challenge in episode 2 of season 4 of RuPaul's Drag Race.
