Lorde Gets Candid About Her Body Image Issues While Making 2021's ‘Solar Power'
Lorde opened up in a new interview published Thursday (May 1) about the struggles she experienced with body image while making her 2021 album Solar Power.
'I had made my body very small, because I thought that that was what you did as a woman and a woman on display,' she told filmmaker and close friend Martine Syms in a conversation for Document Journal. 'I thought, 'I'm small. This will communicate to people that I'm taking my position seriously.''
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Instead, the pop star admitted that the pressure to make her body fit a pre-conceived mold took a serious toll on both her physical health and overall sense of self. 'It had the effect of making me [feel] totally ungrounded,' she continued. 'I was very weak. I look back now, and I don't have that same feeling of floating away .. .I wasn't very embodied.'
Lorde also revealed that gaining a healthier perspective on her body was part of the years-long break between Solar Power and her upcoming fourth album, Virgin, which is set to be released June 25 via Universal Music New Zealand and Republic Records.
'It was like, 'I'm not going to put anything out until I'm in my body the way I know I'm supposed to be, to be able to do my work.' That's all I did the last four years, basically,' she told Syms, adding, 'This album is a byproduct of that process of fully coming into my body and feeling the fullness of my power. It's cool to be back in that place of, like, the portal opening and the weight. I'm myself. All these parts of me are represented in a bunch of different ways. I'm not hiding from myself. I'm not stealing from myself.'
Fans got their first glimpse of Virgin on April 24, when Lorde dropped her new single 'What Was That' along with a music video, culminating in Lorde's recent headline-making appearance at New York City's Washington Square Park. Since then, the singer has also unveiled the album's transparent, X-ray-inspired cover art and revamped her online store with merch teasing the project.
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