Lorde: ‘This is me: all the gore and all the fuck-ups’

This story is taken from the autumn 2025 issue of Dazed, which is on sale internationally from September 11. Pre-order a copy here.

Three days ago, Ella Yelich-O’Connor stood before a crowd of 12,000 people in a Somerset field. Clad in a simple white T-shirt and jeans, she commanded them with the authority of a general, rallying them into a state of euphoria that defied the hour – 11:30am, typically a time at Glastonbury when festivalgoers are still festering in their tents, sweating off the night before. But on this day, Yelich-O’Connor – better known by her stage name, Lorde – was performing her new album, Virgin, as part of a surprise set on the day of its release. This understated power feels fitting for an artist who is not only one of the biggest pop stars in the world, but also one of the most impactful. It’s no exaggeration to say that Lorde changed the landscape of pop, introducing a new, minimalist sound and soul-baring lyricism that influenced a new generation of artists, including Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Clairo, Gracie Abrams and more.

Today it’s a different picture: Lorde is floating in the Hampstead mixed pond, gliding on her back through the murky brown water as the bright July sun gilds her pale face. Around us are other swimmers, the occasional duck and even a heron, standing sentinel beneath a willow tree that drapes its branches into the water. The sky is an almost blinding shade of azure, and the reeds and bulrushes lining the pond glow an especially verdant green. Set against this backdrop – her dark brown hair fanned out around her, eyes to the sky – it’s hard not to think of Ophelia in John Everett Millais’ painting of Shakespeare’s tragic heroine. But it also evokes her own music video for Hammer, filmed just a stone’s throw from these ponds. Lorde has spent a lot of time in these waters; when she lived in London in 2023 and was going through a difficult time personally, she swam here every day.

It’s been ten years – almost to the day – since Lorde first appeared on the cover of Dazed as an 18-year-old, following the release of her era-defining debut album, Pure Heroine. One decade and 10bn Spotify streams later, Lorde stands firmly in a new era. She has just unleashed Virgin on the world, and her sold-out world tour begins in September. Touring can take its toll on Lorde, but being in nature, like she is today, helps her to stay grounded. After an hour in the water, we haul ourselves out and return to the concrete pier, where we’d left our belongings under the watchful eye of two young women who had immediately – but subtly – clocked her. Drying off, we sit down on the pier, dangle our feet back into the cool water below, and begin our interview. Here is that conversation.

Obviously, your music is quite introspective. Does it ever feel exposing, going from the very private act of writing it to the very public act of performing it?

Lorde: Oh my God, beyond. Especially with this album. Right up to the day before the release it was like, fuck. And the whole time having to talk about it… I found it really draining. There was nowhere to turn that wasn’t really raw.

And then promoting it and people saying, “So tell me about that part.”

Lorde: Totally. It was rugged. But I feel quite peaceful now, actually. There’s something cool about being like, “This is me: all the gore and all the fuck-ups.”

A kind of acceptance?

Lorde: Yeah. You can tell by listening to the album that I’m not perfect. I’ve constantly fucked up since I was a teenager. But there was something ascribed to me – a kind of distance, or mystery. Something not very fleshy and mortal. And I needed to bring that in a little bit. I think Bon Iver has this too – this quality where he’s not quite one of us. He’s from this other realm. And it’s beautiful but it can also be isolating. I wanted to know what would happen if I was like, “OK, this is what the real body behind this is doing. How does that go?”

I often talk with my best friend about people being in their “id” eras – living by instinct and impulse. Does that resonate with you?

Lorde: Yeah, totally. Because I think that, if you’re not careful, there can be a lot of ego protection in this work. And I get it – it’s so scary and painful to give that up, because it hurts being misunderstood on a massive scale. But I think it’s worth it.

Do you feel like you’re feeding your inner teenager now? You were so young when you released Pure Heroine – I imagine you had to grow up very fast?

Lorde: I don’t know. I feel like I had a good, healthy teen experience. I never got wasted or ran around. It wasn’t that. But I did put a lot of pressure on myself. And I very quickly understood that, being in this role, you have a duty to a lot of people. I really felt – and feel – a great deal of responsibility. But also, in my personal life, I was around people who were quite a lot older. I moved into this house that was like one you’d have kids in – kind of suburban, swish. It wasn’t until I got out of my relationship in 2023 that I was like, “Hang on, I’m 26, and I think my life could reflect that a bit more.” Then I let a lot of new things in and found a lot of things that make me feel good.

What was making you feel good?

Lorde: I think my life’s got a lot more physical. I started swimming a lot at that time, and biking as well. It sounds small, but if you’re on a bike for an hour a day, it’s one more hour you’re connected to your physicality, not just staring at your phone. Also, I’d had this thing growing up where I was really compartmentalised – my art self and my non-art self. When I was home in New Zealand, I wasn’t an artist. And then I would become an artist when I left. I’ve completely busted that – I’m an artist all the time now.

What’s your relationship with New Zealand now?

Lorde: I’m not there as much as I would like, and I miss it all the time. I’m trying to make more of an effort to spend time there – that’s a priority for the next couple of years. I have a place there now, I’m committed.

Do you like The Lord of the Rings?

Lorde: I’ve never seen it. Never read it. Bad Kiwi, I know. I’m not really into fantasy.

A big part of this album is that I was single and being transformed by having sex with people. It was beautiful – and scary sometimes. It was a moment when I felt scared of what a connection like that could mean

What do you read?

Lorde: Recently, I’ve been reading Annie Ernaux, Rachel Cusk and Ben Lerner. The older I get, the more I want as little fantasy as possible. But I know fantasy can be so moving and close, like Ursula K Le Guin. I should do that sometime.

So, you’ve been spending a lot of time in the ponds?

Lorde: Yeah, in 2023 I came to London in May and left in October. I just read and came swimming here almost every day. I was pretty deep in, I would say, the peak of my eating issues. And it was a huge battle every day.

I’m sorry.

Lorde: It’s all good. But I found swimming in the ladies’ pond did something very healing to me. Something about being in this crowd of bodies and seeing all these girls eating – every girl’s got a bag from [British bakery chain] Gail’s – and being held in the water… It was so beautiful. That honestly was a big part of me choosing to let go of this.

I wanted to ask about your relationship to spirituality, because you seem to–

Lorde: –constantly talk about things. [laughs]

You seem to swim in deep waters… How does that connect to spirituality for you?

Lorde: You know, doing this work, it’s imperative and spiritual. You’re up there on stage, and you’re a conduit. What happens at my shows isn’t about me – it’s about whether I can be a touchboard and get people towards feelings. I think you have to have a framework to understand it. Since I started doing psychedelics, I’ve felt more connected to my childhood; I’ve connected some dots, some feelings about spirituality and work. It’s quite bodily or physical.

What’s your star sign?

Lorde: I’m a Scorpio.

That must be it.

Lorde: I hear that I’m a textbook Scorpio.

What was the best cigarette of your life?

Lorde: When I was 19, on MDMA – it does something good to a cigarette. I’ve never been that into smoking, but I remember saying it out loud – “This is the best cigarette of my life” – and I kept the butt in an envelope.

When did you first do MDMA?

Lorde: Too young.

Is that your drug?

Lorde: Yeah.

It’s crazy how chemicals can alter your perception of the world.

Lorde: Yeah. I find alcohol like that. And when I came off my birth control, I had these very significant dips in mood every month and got diagnosed with PMDD, which is a proper clinical depression that happens cyclically. There’s actual treatment for it – I take the tiniest dose of Prozac, snapped in half, once a month. And it genuinely has made a huge difference to me. It’s been, like, exact days of the month – but it’s changed the game.

What was it like coming off birth control?

Lorde: There was a puberty-type feeling to it – something quite unregulated. Every song was written at the end of 2023, after I came off birth control. It’s like when Lauryn Hill wrote The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill – she was pregnant and had this unbelievable channel open between her and some creative force.

Do you find that you can operate quite normally when you’re out in public?

Lorde: I think I really can. I don’t know why. I was off social media for three years.

Yeah, I guess living somewhere like LA would be more intense.

Lorde: Yeah – or if you’re near a school, or in Dalston. It depends on the area. But I’m lucky. I seem to be able to cruise around pretty well. It’s amazing. I’ve had this understanding since I was 18 – that the trade wouldn’t be worth it, to ascend to the degree people do. The security component of it. I really had a sense that I would leave things on the table to avoid building a life that trapped me – something I couldn’t handle. I feel like I’ve had the perfect life for me; I get to do my work, and it stretches me to the peak of my abilities. I find it both awesome and challenging. But I still feel like I run a boutique operation. It’s just a handful of us. Even the album was like that – just me and Jim-E [Stack], locked away. It was very pure.

Some days, I can’t wear women’s clothes. I’ve had to figure out how to have my make-up done in a way that doesn’t make me feel trapped or tight or like the wrong thing

Is that why you’ve been able to maintain so much agency?

Lorde: I think I was such a stubborn little brat of a 15-year-old. I spoke really plainly to label people. It makes me cringe now.

What’s your relationship with the internet?

Lorde: I’m plugged in and I like it, although I also know it’s poison. Still, I realise that to be a good artist in 2025 – or to make pop culture – you have to be in the soup, to know what the forces are. I was so literate at it as a young person, but around Solar Power I truly didn’t log on for years. I didn’t understand anything anyone was talking about. Now it feels fun again. A big part of releasing Virgin the way I have has been asking: what would be fun? What would interest me as someone who sees everything and knows there are ways of doing things? Learning how I want to communicate in that medium, in 2025, has been a really fun challenge. This album is about vulnerability and rebirth, and there’s an inherent vulnerability joining TikTok. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I’ll probably get it wrong.

Do you post on there yourself?

Lorde: Yeah, I post it myself.

“Current Affairs” sparked a lot of discussion on TikTok. What’s the story behind that song? Let’s go there.

Lorde: Oh God. I mean… I don’t know how there I need to go, really. I feel like, with all these songs, it’s just the song. I do think that maybe the title is misleading. It’s not a literal affair to me. When we wrote What Was That, it had this line about talking current affairs, which I always saw as just the ins and outs – who’s with who and what’s going on. But no, no affair. No literal affair. I feel like the broader story of that song and a big part of this album is that I was single and being transformed by having sex with people. It was so beautiful – and scary sometimes. I think that was just a moment when I felt scared of what a connection like that could mean.

Being plugged into the internet, do you ever get surprised by what people pick up on? What you said in your Rolling Stone interview about being “in the middle gender-wise”, for instance, generated a lot of interest. Was that a surprise?

Lorde: I knew it was gonna be a tricky one, and that I wasn’t making it easy, not really putting it in a clear box.

What was it that Chappell [Roan] said to you? “So, are you non-binary now?”

Lorde: I think I misquoted that – I feel really bad. She said, very sweetly, something like, “So your pronouns are changing?”

But they’re not?

Lorde: No. Right now, it feels as it should. But some days, I can’t wear women’s clothes. I’ve had to figure out how to have my make-up done in a way that doesn’t make me feel trapped or tight or like the wrong thing. Now I just tell people, “Treat it like male grooming.” There always need to be options for clothing, or shirts. I had no idea there would be days when I felt totally out-of-body, and it was because I was wearing women’s clothes when it wasn’t the right thing. It’s all a journey. I have no idea where it’s gonna go; it doesn’t feel like I’ve arrived anywhere permanent at all. I’m sure it’ll keep unfurling, the way these things do. It really took me by surprise how much shame I felt – feeling all that come up wasn’t easy. Even as I see my friends coming fully into their genders, feeling nothing but pride, love, respect and bliss. I just think it takes time to metabolise and find itself. I’m excited to find out where that lands, if it ever does land. Your whole life it keeps unfurling.

I suppose we’re not static as humans.

Lorde: I think so, yeah. Something really happened for me when I taped my chest for the first time. I came into some understanding about myself, and felt a very pure version of myself present.

When was that?

Lorde: I think it was the end of 2023. I was just starting to write Man of the Year. I’d really been feeling this stuff bubble up and talking about it a lot in therapy. We started writing the song, and I saw this TV performance of it [in my mind’s eye], and it wasn’t even finished. And in the performance I saw myself in jeans, no shirt. And I thought about how I would actually do that on TV. It wasn’t a bra. I had this roll of tape and grabbed it, put my jeans on, taped up, and saw myself – and was like, “Fuck, that’s me.” Suddenly, I could see it. It was scary.

So you felt like yourself?

Lorde: Yeah. And I didn’t even know I wanted that to be me. But now I feel so beautiful in both ways. I feel vulnerable and calm. It really tripped me out.

So it threw you a bit?

Lorde: Yeah, absolutely. But I think that’s why I write – to alchemise those feelings and make an amulet or something protective. A song can be like a little piece of protective magic. I really felt that when writing Liability. It was such a foundational feeling for me, this thing of waiting for the day someone sees me right the way through, gets freaked out and leaves. I just always had that feeling. Writing that song felt like pulling a protective cloak around me. That’s why I write: to be OK with states of being that feel too big for just me, Ella. If I can use this skill, it really helps me. I know I still have so much to learn. That’s why I’ve been careful not to take up space that isn’t mine – just to say, “This is my experience over here.” Because I can’t even imagine what it feels like to be trans in this world. It’s not a joke, especially in the States right now. I’ve got a lot of friends who are really frightened. But where I was at still had value to me. My job is to make the expression as truthful as possible.

I think Liability is my favourite song of yours. It’s the one I go back to most. I remember [writer] JP Brammer retweeting a clip of your appearance on Hot Ones [YouTube show where host Sean Evans interviews guests while they eat increasingly spicy chicken wings. Lorde is one of the most successful guests ever to appear on the series]. He wrote: “People are shocked by this, but you don’t write Liability without being close friends with pain itself.”

Lorde: [laughs] So beautiful.

I think it’s my job to get as close to these big, deep pains that we all feel as I can bear, and try and alchemise them into something that is beautiful

How did you write that song, and where did it come from?

Lorde: Well, it’s funny – often, with my songs, they’re not factual; they’re not documentaries. Someone gave me a feeling – that something about me was way too much and not OK. I don’t even think they said anything that crazy, but it hit me in such a deep way. The song just came out. But I remember it was a tight moment. I think also it’s hard to get close to someone famous – it’s all the stuff that comes with it. That was playing on my mind too, that I’d chosen this career that would compromise all of my intimate relationships. And that I was making a trade that would hurt.

That’s what I love about your music, your vulnerability. People connect to the pain in your songs. There’s depth and power in them.

Lorde: Oh, Ted…

Like all good writers, you speak to the human condition.

Lorde: Thank you so much. I reread [Lois Lowry’s] The Giver recently. I read it as a ten-year-old, and I reread it on the plane a couple of weeks ago and it really struck me. There’s this figure in the community who feels all the pain that other people couldn’t handle – absorbs it, holds it.

Without being too fucking high-minded – I make pop music, I’m under no illusion – I think it’s my job to get as close to these big, deep pains that we all feel as I can bear, and try and alchemise them into something that is beautiful and gives catharsis. I think about that a lot with my work. I don’t really see it as being about me, although it is very personal. But that’s why I find pop music so incredible, because it’s about the collective.

Hair Matt Benns at CLM using K18 Hair, make-up Maud Laceppe at Home Agency, nails Liia Zotova at Future Rep using Chanel cuticle balm and hand cream, set design Julia Dias, photographic assistants Oliver Matich, Jenny Luo, styling assistants Darlene Park, Morena Salas, Jessica Sharp, set design assistants Sam Edyn, Matthew Payne, production Chantelle-Shakila Tiagi at TIAGI, production manager Zim Uddin, senior production assistant Richard Cook, production assistants Tiayana Simms, Linda Mwapela, Mia Alvarez, casting gk-ld, special thanks Walthamstow Wetlands