In 1981, she briefly hosted her own talk show "Today's Black Woman", and also found work acting in different movies, Broadway and other theatre productions throughout the 1980s. Although she was concentrating more on acting by that time, she never gave up music; in 1982, she recorded a single entitled "In Motion" for the Sutra label in New York, and in 1986, she recorded a remake of her old hit "Band of Gold" with Belinda Carlisle. In 1990, she recorded three songs for Ian Levine's UK Motorcity label: another remake of "Band of Gold," "Memories and Souvenirs," and "Only Minutes Away." In the mid-1990s, she released two albums for Dove Music: "An Evening With Freda Payne: Live in Concert" which featured her sister Scherrie Payne on background vocals, and her first (and only) Christmas album "Christmas With Freda and Friends", which featured a duet between Freda and Scherrie (both 1996). She also continued her acting career appearing in the films, "Private Obsession" (1995), "Ragdoll" (1999), "" (2000), and "Fire & Ice" (made-for-TV, 2001).