Lorde reveals psychedelic therapy helped with eating disorder and stage fright
Ahead of the release of Virgin, her first album in four years, Lorde told journalist Brittany Spanos that MDMA and psilocybin therapy helped her navigate a difficult period marked by stage fright, an eating disorder, and the end of a long-term relationship.
Spanos describes Virgin, set for release on June 27, as 'feral, wild, and physical, full of Lorde's most from-the-gut singing ever'. The album is said to be Lorde's most vulnerable yet, with the 28-year-old admitting to the publication she is 'terrified' to open up about the album.
'There's going to be a lot of people who don't think I'm a good girl any more, a good woman. It's over,' she told Spanos.
'It will be over for a lot of people; for some people, I will have arrived. I'll be where they always hoped I'd be.'
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Lorde revealed she undertook psychedelic therapy using MDMA and psilocybin between 2022 and 2024 – a currently illegal form of psychiatric PTSD treatment - to combat crippling stage fright. She said the Solar Power tour was the first time she performed without that fear, which helped her better connect with audiences.
'I would play Supercut and all of a sudden there was a hook around my guts and everyone in the room was having the same feeling, [like] there'd been a huge pressure change.
'It made me realise how much I love and kind of need that very deep, visceral response to feel my music.'
In the interview, Lorde also disclosed that she was struggling with a then undiagnosed eating disorder during the Solar Power tour and press cycle – an illness that began during the pandemic.
The singer spoke candidly about undertaking a high-profile press tour while in the grip of the illness.
'I felt so hungry and so weak,' she said. 'I was on TV [that] morning, and I didn't eat because I wanted my tummy to be small in the dress. It was just this sucking of a life force or something.'
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The disorder, she said, affected her ability to enjoy the tour.
'I don't know how those two things can be true: that I'm having this really amazing, rich experience of playing the shows and meeting these kids, and [yet] I'm also looking at the pictures afterward and feeling deep loathing at the sight of my beautiful, tiny tummy, thinking it was so unforgivable what I had allowed it to become.'
Lorde said the therapy helped her find a path through her disordered eating habits and obsessive calorie and protein tracking.
'Once I stopped doing that, I had all this energy for making stuff,' Lorde said.
'I could see that if I cut that cord, maybe I would get something back that I needed to do my work. And it was totally true. Got it all back, and way more.'
Elsewhere in the revealing interview, Lorde confirmed her 2023 break-up with Auckland music executive Justin Warren, with whom she had been in a relationship for eight years.
'It was so painful, as they are, but there was real dignity to it and grace and a lot of respect. It continues to be a relationship that I cherish.'
The pair, who have a 17-year age gap, met when the artist signed to Universal Music, the label Warren worked for.
Reconnecting with herself as a single person, while recovering from her eating disorder, led to a period of physical and creative reinvention. This included exploring her gender identity.
Spanos reveals that on Virgin 's opening track, Lorde sings 'Some days I'm a woman/Some days I'm a man.'
Lorde said fellow singer Chappell Roan had inquired whether she was non-binary, to which she responded, 'I'm a woman except for the days when I'm a man'.
'I know that's not a very satisfying answer, but there's a part of me that is really resistant to boxing it up.'
She now described herself as 'in the middle gender-wise" but called herself a cis woman and uses she/her pronouns.
Lorde acknowledged her privilege as a 'wealthy, cis, white woman,' saying it allowed her to explore identity privately without facing the risks many others do when their gender doesn't align with their birth assignment.
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One of the surprising disclosures from the almost 6000-word interview involves Lorde seeking out and watching the Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape, a tape the couple maintain was stolen and leaked, leading to lawsuits, and an obsession with the pair. In Netflix's 2023 documentary Pamela, a love story, Anderson said the fallout ruined not only her career but her credibility in the public eye.
'I found it to be so beautiful,' Lorde, 28, told the publication. 'And maybe it's f****d up that I watched it, but I saw two people that were so in love with each other.'
The Auckland-born singer, now based in New York, spoke of the contrast the American city offers to life in New Zealand.
'I used to have this feeling of when I go [to the United States], when I'm in these spaces, I'm an artist, and then I go home and I'm myself,' she explains.
'And that's crazy. It's not what being an artist is like. You're an artist all day, whatever country you're in. I think building a home here has helped me to see that.'
The interview ends with Lorde embracing the most impassioned parts of herself.
'I'm kind of an intense b***h,' she said.
'I've connected with the mission to do what only I can do. It's enough.'
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