Lorde is finally in a better place after years of struggling with her body image and disordered eating, something she now says left her feeling “weak” and “ungrounded” for a long time.
In a raw new interview with Document Journal, the 27-year-old pop star admitted she didn’t want to release any music until she could reconnect with herself both physically and mentally. That’s why fans have waited four years since her last album, Solar Power. Her upcoming record Virgin, due this June, is the result of that healing.
She opened up about how, as a woman constantly on display, she felt pressured to shrink herself, literally. “I had made my body very small,” she explained. “I thought that was what you did as a woman and a woman on display. This will communicate to people that I’m taking my position seriously.” But all it did was make her feel completely detached from herself. “It had the effect of making me [feel] totally ungrounded. I was very weak.”
Lorde’s journey over the past four years has been deeply personal. She didn’t just take a break to rest, she completely overhauled her relationship with food, body image, and self-worth. “I eat as much as I want and need now,” she said. “I wasn’t very embodied.” She described how every bite of food once felt like theft. “I often would think about not eating very much as I felt like every bite of food I had was stolen. I was like, Hang on, this has gotten weird.”
She’s now reached a place where she no longer feels like she’s floating outside of herself. Her creative process and new music are grounded in that reclaimed strength. “This album is a byproduct of that process of fully coming into my body and feeling the fullness of my power,” she said. “It’s cool to be back in that place of, like, the portal opening and the weight. I’m myself … I’m not hiding from myself. I’m not stealing from myself.”
Lorde’s comeback single “What Was That” dropped in April, and Virgin is shaping up to be one of her most honest and empowering works yet. The delay in her discography wasn’t about perfectionism, it was about survival and self-acceptance.
