Lorde opens up about unprotected sex and pregnancy tests
The 28-year-old singer from New Zealand will unleash her fourth studio album, titled Virgin, later this month. Among the tracks on the record is a song titled Clearblue - which she has confessed she struggles to listen to. Opening up on the Therapuss podcast, the chart-topping star explained, "There's a song that I love so much called Clearblue that is about unprotected sex.' "And just the experience of taking a pregnancy test, and like, this flood of emotions that goes through your body.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
2 days ago
- ABC News
Lorde on her feminine lineage, gender fluidity, and creating new album Virgin
Lorde seems to have emerged into her final form. We first met the New Zealand sensation at the tender age of 16 when she she exploded into the Zeitgeist with 'Royals'. From there, we've seen her explore her identity through each release like a different set of clothes in her wardrobe. She's been the dark pop girlie, the up-all-night club kid, and the barefoot free spirit. Now, ahead of her fourth album, Virgin, she has once again emerged from the proverbial chrysalis. But instead of debuting a flashy new look, she's stripped everything back — clean, vulnerable, exposed, virginal. "I was really trying to make an album that didn't lie in the instrumentation, in the language, in the feeling," Lorde told triple j Mornings' Lucy Smith. "I've made work in the past that were sort of dramatising it as the point and pumping up the saturation on the colours and that's so sick. But I really felt with this one that there was something very… plain and true that needed to come, something pure." Lorde's taking it back to her roots in every sense of the word. She's physically returned to a version of herself she hasn't experienced for more than a decade. She's lyrically displayed her thoughts and feelings without a mask. And she's spiritually reached back into the line of women that came before her, who made her who she is today. "I really thought about my mum [when] making this album," she said. "I thought a lot about what comes before us, as women, the lineage that reaches up above us and shapes us. I understood my mum a lot more through making this album." There's an abruptness to Virgin, where Lorde lays it all out on the table for the world to see. Launching this new era with an X-ray of herself was merely the beginning of this up-front energy, which she credits to wanting to honour her teenage self. "I think of these big swings of emotion, these sort of big surges, and I think of this toughness and 'my way'-ness. And also, this deep vulnerability. "You're on the precipice of great change. You're leaving something behind, you're gaining something else. Just as I came into myself and my body in this new way." Lorde's newness of herself comes down to the personal decision of stopping birth control; the IUD we see in the X-ray scan. "The little yellow pill I took every morning for thousands of mornings since I was 15, I stopped taking it five days ago. Gonna see how it goes," Lorde wrote in her September 2023 newsletter. Right as the 28-year-old teeters on another of life's precipices — her Saturn return — she made the decision to change herself at a cellular level, allowing her body to revert to its rawest form. And with that change come significant shifts in hormones, her understanding of herself, her identity. It's this exact renewal that she opens Virgin with, singing on the first track, 'Hammer': "There's a heat in the pavement, my mercury's raising Don't know if it's love or if it's ovulation When you're holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail" "Very raw. Something very kind of pure and crazy pumping through your system. There was also something kind of macho in a way, just the strength, the physical strength in my body was completely different. "I lift weights, and it was crazy when I would ovulate — it's sort of more chill now — but when I was first coming off birth control, I would be able to lift significantly more." Writing in such an up-front manner is a big shift for Lorde, considering 2021's Solar Power was "cloaked in metaphor and imagery", as she told Smith, and the ecstasy-soaked energy of her much-loved 2017 release, Melodrama. On Virgin, she was determined to turn the harsh fluorescent lights on to pick herself apart wholly. Inspired by reading the works of plain-writing women (in a 2023 newsletter, she noted reading Sheila Heti, Renata Adler, Olga Tokarczuk and Molly Giles), Lorde wanted to be as courageous as these women are with their words. No sugar-coating, no crypticism, just seeing "the body in its grotesque beauty". One artist Lorde drew inspiration from while creating Virgin was British artist Tracey Emin, specifically her 1995 work, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963 — 1995 (which was destroyed in a warehouse fire in 2004). This piece was the background on Lorde's laptop while she built the album — it's influence perhaps most evident on third track 'Shapeshifter' — as a reminder of the kind of unflinching art she wanted to create. "Her works are just this unsparing femininity," Lorde says. "It was such a game-changer in the art world. That work really struck me. It's this kind of pop-tent that's embroidered with the names of everyone she's ever slept with, whether it was hooked up or just shared a bed with." The overarching theme of Virgin is Lorde's deep exploration of her gender and femininity. In the process of stripping herself back, Lorde discovered: "I was beginning to understand that my gender was more expansive than I had thought." In the album's second single, 'Man Of The Year', we meet Lorde at this realisation point, sparked by feeling out of place at the GQ Man Of The Year awards. "I wore this basic hot-girl outfit, my hair really looked like a girl, and I felt all wrong all night," she told Smith. "This is a night where I'm a man, like I'm supposed to be with them. I really felt this wrongness. Written at a time when she was going to the gym, gaining strength, and broadening out in her arms and shoulders, Lorde challenges both her and our understanding of modern femininity with Virgin. While she credits her mother and grandmother as being "the blueprint" for her, she also pushes the envelope to explore what it means to be an unafraid, unapologetic woman in 2025. "I think a lot of women have this conditioning to want to look… to want to be the smallest possible version of themselves," she said. "It took me a second to be like, 'What if we didn't do that? What would surrendering to becoming whatever size you're supposed to become do to your life? What would that feel like, if you could be brave and let that happen?' "The answer is that amazing stuff happens. I couldn't be more of an advocate of letting yourself become yourself, all the way, come what may. You truly have to surrender to it. You don't know what that's gonna look like, but it's gonna be good." As Lorde reflects on her maternal lineage, she's also forging ahead with her own divine feminine — one who's confident to reveal her whole self. Unadulterated, unfiltered, unflinching. "My mum's such an incredible woman," she said. "She really is like the blueprint for who I am. And her pain is my pain, and her peace is my peace and her grandmother's and all this. "So I really had that sense of us all being together." Virgin is out now. Hear Lucy Smith hosting Mornings on triple j from 9am Monday to Friday.
ABC News
2 days ago
- ABC News
"Physically gratifying": Lorde picks apart her most exposing album, Virgin
Lorde is laying it all bare under the stark light with her fourth album Virgin ; a concept evident from the drop when she revealed artwork belonging to this new project. What is a more revealing and equalising image than an x-ray? While our minds immediately link the album title to the obvious idea — sex and the transition to adulthood — Lorde explores "virgin" in a more literal sense; pure, unadulterated and original. No hiding, no mask, no covering up. Just a woman laid bare, allowing us to inspect her bones. The album developed at a time when Lorde was experiencing a sense of renewed pureness herself. She came off her birth control and experienced a break-up in close succession, a seismic emotional and hormonal shift that allowed her to see herself with fresh eyes under a harsh, bright light — something she wasn't ready to do with Solar Power . Inspired by the plain and frank writing of other women she had been reading, Lorde turned the spotlight inward to examine herself at a pore-level. "I think coming out of my last album, which was a little bit more cloaked in metaphor and sort of imagery, which I really needed at that time, I think a lot of us did in the pandemic sort of need to go somewhere," she said. "It wasn't the right time for the fluorescent lights to be on, to see the body in its grotesque beauty." "But I think it's a combination of things. I think like coming into my later twenties, I felt more sort of accepting of myself and really tapped into the magnificence of being like in the body." Inspecting and accepting this grotesque beauty she hadn't allowed herself to do publicly also allowed Lorde to honour parts of her teen self; one that was in the spotlight from the age of 16. "When I think about being a teenager I think of a crudeness, a sort of lack of refinement," she said. "I think of these big swings of emotion, these big surges and I think of this sort of toughness and stubbornness, and like 'my way'-ness. And also this deep vulnerability. "You know, you're on the precipice of great change. You're leaving something behind. You're gaining something else. Just as I kind of came into myself and my body in this new way." "Coming into my later 20s, I felt more accepting of myself and really tapped into the magnificence of being like in the body." ( Credit: Instagram / @lorde ) Being in a stripped back form of her reality without synthetic hormones or another to focus attention on, Lorde was also able to explore her gender expression and ways it felt affirming to her. The creation of 'Man Of The Year' lets us meet Lorde at the moment this kicked off for her — at an event celebrating the masculine where she felt "a wrongness" for dressing feminine. "I wore this very basic hot girl outfit. My hair really looked like a girl and I felt all wrong, all night," she said. "I was like, 'This is wrong. Why am I dressed like a girl tonight? This is a night where I'm a man, like I'm supposed to be with them'. "This was at a time where I was kind of beginning to understand that my gender was, yeah, like more expansive than I had thought. I am like a woman, but there's masculinity within that. Deep masculinity." Lorde's exploration of her gender involved her taking up more space by going to the gym, building muscle and broadening out. "I was getting stronger, I'd gained some weight and all of a sudden I was seeing these shoulders and arms and I would see myself sometimes and get a fright," she said. "I think a lot of women have this sort of conditioning to want to look. You know, to be the like smallest possible version of themselves. It took me a second to be like, 'what if we didn't do that?'" The duality of 'Man Of The Year' follows immediately afterwards — 'Grown Woman'. With its direct lyrics and unflinching horniness, Lorde delivers a track that can only be described in one way. "It's my fuck-girl song," she laughed. "It's what I want. It's kind of dumb and horny. It's so bombastic, the drum language." "I am like a woman, but there's masculinity within that. Deep masculinity." ( Credit: Instagram / @lorde, Talia Chetrit ) Virgin was created with Jim-E Stack, combining her stirring lyricism with his abrasive industrial sound. It was an interesting learning curve for Lorde; Jim-E's process challenged her with the way she builds sounds and melodies, pulling her away from the well-worn creative path she's always tread. "Jim-E has such a language to how he samples drums," she said. "You hear the presence of machines in a big way with his drums, but I think that we really like took his language and expanded upon it and... I think the crux of our collaboration is that I am always sort of advocating for simplicity. "I remember making 'Man of the Year', I was just like lying on the couch sort of singing into the microphone and then we like chopped that up together, like almost like an electronic song. Just pulling vocals around, throwing them wherever, putting this here, cutting that in half, moving it over there, and I hadn't written a melody like that before, but it felt right." This collaboration resulted in Lorde and Jim-E "making choices that were physically gratifying" instead of thinking too deeply. With the use of Korg Polysix synths across Virgin , Lorde embraced the kind of warm, indulgent sounds she grew up listening to. "It has this very yummy, I call it like 'guilty pleasure' feeling," she said. "It reminds me of Ratatat, I grew up listening to so much Ratatat on the school bus. It was just so cool and satisfying, there's almost like a dumbness to the synth and I love that. "It works on my body and kind of bypasses my brain, you know?" "So I think the percussion choices were kind of made on a similar level. Just what feels good, not what do we think is a good idea." Lorde surprised herself on Virgin , largely with her direct and unflinching lyricism. She wrote plainly about sex and the human experience in ways she'd never heard before, in a way she knew she needed to. "I think there are lines in 'Current Affairs' and 'Clear Blue' that are pretty not safe for work, that felt kind of shocking to me and profound too," she said. "I didn't realise that I had been wanting to hear a woman talk about sex the way I was talking about sex on this album. "Honestly, this album is so many things. 'Broken Glass' – it took a lot to let that song out of me. 'Favourite Daughter'...there is stuff that's hard to say but I think I've got to say it."
News.com.au
2 days ago
- News.com.au
Cricketer Amelia Kerr on how family saved her amid mental health battle
A desire to 'protect the people I love most' initially led star WBBL cricketer Amelia Kerr to try to hide her 'unbearable sadness' from her family. But after they surprised the young all-rounder with a lifesaving intervention that made her feel as if 'she was at her own funeral', their support became crucial to her ongoing management of anxiety and depression. Kerr took her game to another level in 2024 to be crowned player of the tournament during New Zealand's maiden T20 World Cup title run, and the International Cricket Council's Women's Cricketer of the Year. She was a prized pick-up for WBBL side the Sydney Sixers last season, after stints at the Brisbane Heat, and starred for the Mumbai Indians during their 2025 WPL title-winning season earlier this year. But reaching these heights has been anything but easy for the 24-year-old, who began to bottle up her emotions in her late teens because she felt she should be grateful to be 'living out my childhood dream' playing for the White Ferns. 'I was also living with the belief that everything I did had to be perfect. I never gave myself a break,' Kerr told News Corp's Can We Talk? campaign, in partnership with Medibank. 'My thoughts started to consume me and my only escape, the only place where my mind was clear and I felt like I could breathe, was training. 'I would get up early, train all day, then go to the pool at night and do recovery, so all I needed to do was come home eat, shower and try to sleep. 'I tried to avoid my family because I didn't want them to see the pain I was in.' Kerr said she believed that her loved ones couldn't fix her anguish, and therefore didn't want to burden them. But in 2021, the floodgates opened after she was sent home from a White Ferns training camp. Kerr said the decision angered her at the time, but she had since realised she 'had reached a crisis point' and needed 'serious help'. Teammate and close friend Maddy Green flew back with Kerr to her hometown of Wellington, where her parents, sister (fellow White Ferns cricketer Jess), grandparents, aunties and uncles staged a second intervention. A 10-minute, tear-filled speech by her dad, former Wellington player Robbie Kerr, was one of 'many powerful messages that night' that Kerr said gave her hope. 'I thought, 'My family need me here and I need to try get better for them',' she said. 'My family saved my life. 'They knew I was struggling, but they didn't quite know the degree. 'I was then taken to the crisis team at hospital (where) I spoke about how I was feeling. 'Everyone in that room was in tears.' Weekly sessions with a psychiatrist, medication and close monitoring followed, allowing Kerr to 'feel safe for once'. The talented bowler and batter also went public with her mental health battles when she pulled out of the White Ferns' 2021 tour of England. While she was 'scared' to be so open, doing so 'was me standing up for something I am passionate about, so it can provide others with hope that things can get better'. Kerr continues to manage her mental health through regular psychologist sessions, learning her 'warning signs' so she can ask for help before getting to a bad place, having a routine, practising gratitude and putting time towards activities that 'fill my cup' like exercise, being in nature, reading, playing guitar and being with loved ones. She also created Treading Water – a series on her website, in which 14 people share their stories of mental illness and recovery to 'help normalise those conversations'. Importantly, Kerr and her family have built 'a relationship of trust' in which she feels comfortable to 'tell them how I feel, and for them to do the same'. 'The experiences we have shared have made us even closer and more grateful for life,' she said.
