In her recent Rolling Stone cover story, Lorde opens up about the personal transformations that shaped her new album, Virgin, out today.
Speaking with Brittany Spanos, the New Zealand pop star touches on a wide range of topics, from gender identity to unconventional therapies that helped her heal.
Lorde credits MDMA and psilocybin therapy with helping her overcome stage fright and deepen her emotional connection to music. As Spanos writes, “Over the course of many sessions between 2022 and 2024, Lorde would take one of the psychedelic drugs and let the euphoria free her body and her mind.”
The impact was profound. “I was touring without stage fright for the first time,” Lorde told Rolling Stone. Instead of hiding in her hotel room before shows, she could finally explore cities like Milan and Paris. The music itself felt different too. “I would play ‘Supercut,’” she explains, “and all of a sudden there was a hook around my guts and everyone in the room was having the same feeling… It made me realise how much I love and kind of need that very deep, visceral response to feel my music.”
She also talks about her evolving gender identity: “I’m a woman except for the days when I’m a man.” Refusing fixed labels, she describes herself as “in the middle gender-wise,” which is reflected in her new album’s lyrics like, “Some days I’m a woman / Some days I’m a man.”
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The interview also reveals a difficult chapter in Lorde’s life. She candidly discusses her struggle with an eating disorder during her 2022 Solar Power tour. “I hit rock bottom on multiple levels,” she admits, having been consumed by extreme calorie counting and starvation to fit a certain image.
“She was unhealthy — starving herself and obsessing over her size — but not so visibly that it would ring alarm bells for anyone around her,” Spanos wrote. “She was consumed with counting calories and monitoring her protein intake.” This preoccupation began during the pandemic, and by the time the North American leg of the tour started in April 2022, Lorde hadn’t yet acknowledged her eating disorder to herself.
Read the full Rolling Stone interview here.
