Lorde Opens Up About Gender Identity 'Journey': 'Pure Version Of Myself'

Lorde is clarifying past comments and opening up more about her gender identity journey.

In a new cover story for DAZED magazine, the New Zealand-born musician, 28, recalled the revelation she felt when she taped her chest for the first time in 2023 while writing her song "Man of the Year," from her latest album Virgin.

"I came into some understanding about myself and felt a very pure version of myself present," she said, adding, "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 her mind], 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, 'f---, that's me.' Suddenly, I could see it. It was scary."

The "What Was That" singer also clarified comments she made in a May interview with Rolling Stone when she said Chappell Roan asked if she identified as "non-binary" now, per People.

"I feel really bad," she said, admitting she thinks she "misquoted" the "Subway" singer. "She said, very sweetly, something like, 'So your pronouns are changing?'"

While her pronouns are remaining the same "right now," Lorde noted that the "journey" with her gender identity is always shifting.

"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,'" she said, adding that she 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."

She continued, "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."