The phone number 867-5309, made famous by Tommy Tutone‘s 1982 hit “867-5309/Jenny,” is now a cancer helpline. In March 2026, the Cancer Support Community and Gilda’s Club repurposed the number as a resource for anyone impacted by cancer, turning one of the most prank-called digits in American history into a lifeline. Tommy Heath, 78, the vocalist who sang those numbers into pop culture history, is battling minor skin cancer himself and called the repurposing “incredibly meaningful.”
Nobody agrees on where the number came from. That’s the other story.
Tommy Heath says Jenny was real. A woman whose number he found, called and dated. “I speak to her once in a while,” he told ABC Audio in 2026. “We joke about having a reality show about what really happened.”
His co-writer Alex Call has a completely different version. “I actually just came up with the ‘Jenny’ and the telephone number and the music and all that just sitting in my backyard,” Call told American Songwriter. “There was no Jenny. I don’t know where the number came from. I was just trying to write a four-chord rock song, and it just kind of came out.”
Call even addressed the more compelling version directly. “Tommy Tutone’s been using the story for years that there was a Jenny and she ran a recording studio and so forth. It makes a better story, but it’s not true. That sounds a lot better than I made it up under a plum tree in my backyard.”
And then there’s co-writer Jim Keller, who told Guitar Player the label simply invented the story. “There was never a real Jenny, and none of us saw that number anywhere,” Keller said. “Our label thought we should make up a good story about it, so we went with it.”
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Three people. Three versions. One number.
Whatever its origin, the number didn’t stay in the song. It jumped out of the radio and into real life, and real life wasn’t prepared for it.
In 2009, a New Jersey DJ who’d held onto his 867-5309 number tried to sell it on eBay. Bids reached $350,000. Before that, people who happened to have the number had been fielding prank calls from strangers for years. Many changed their numbers. Tommy Tutone never had another hit like it. The band faded. The number didn’t.
The number has since appeared in Breaking Bad, The Officeand Scrubs. It’s been covered by dozens of artists, used in commercials and referenced in films for four decades. A one-hit wonder’s phone number became one of the most culturally persistent strings of digits in American history.
In 2026, Jenny’s Number Answers for Something Real
In March 2026, the Cancer Support Community and Gilda’s Club made it official. The number 867-5309 is now a cancer helpline. Call 272-867-5309 and someone real answers. Gilda’s Club, which provides free cancer support to patients and their families, was named for Gilda Radner, the comedian who died of ovarian cancer in 1989. The number that spent 44 years ringing as a joke now rings as a lifeline.
Heath said it felt right immediately. “I gave a ‘yes’ as soon as they asked me, because we’ve all got to give back sometimes,” he told ABC Audio.
He’s 78. He has minor skin cancer. He knows what it means to get a call that helps.
“When we recorded this, none of us imagined that number would still be stuck in people’s heads decades later,” Heath told People. “If that little piece of pop culture can now help someone remember Cancer Support Community’s helpline and connect them to real people, real community, and real support, that’s incredibly meaningful to us.”
Alex Call may have invented the number under a plum tree. Jim Keller says the label made it up. Heath says Jenny is real and still laughs about it. Nobody agrees and nobody will ever fully know. But in 2026, when you call 867-5309, someone real answers.
The number that spent 44 years ringing as a joke is now ringing as a lifeline.
Jenny, wherever she is or isn’t, would probably approve.
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