Lorde Reveals How Becoming Famous at a Young Age Created a ‘Binary’ in Her Personal Life

After achieving global stardom at just 16 years old back in 2013, Lorde is ready to look back on how becoming famous at such a young age impacted her life.

In a new interview with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe, Lorde revealed that her rapid rise to success created a “binary” way that she viewed her life as a young woman. “When I’m in the studio or when I’m in America, I’m an artist. When I go home to New Zealand, I’m not an artist and I turn that part of myself off,” she explained. “It’s impossible obviously.”

The “What Was That” singer continued, saying that while her 2021 album Solar Power was an attempt to break that pattern and merge the two modes of her life. “Didn’t feel great,” she said. “And I’ve realized now, and this speaks to the trying to find this purest version of yourself … the purest version of me is famous out in the world. It’s just that she’s maybe in a garden experiencing ego death in the middle of the night on a heroic dose.”

The new interview comes just one day before Lorde is set to drop her fourth studio album Virgin, which she has said was written throughout her own struggles with body image, disordered eating and gender identity. In her new interview, Lorde expanded on those ideas, explaining that she reached a “breaking point” following the release of Solar Power that forced her to reassess her life choices.

“I was like, ‘Why am I in this role? What is the way that I want to be in that feels right to me and healthy to me?'” she asked. “I remember waking up one day and being like, ‘I cannot do this anymore. I cannot go to bed thinking about everything I ate that day and waking up worrying about all the shit I’m going to eat.’ [It] completely robbed me of all of my life force and creativity.”

Watch Lorde’s full interview with Zane Lowe below: