Cat Power To Music Press: ‘Fuck You’

American indie songstress Cat Power has launched a scathing attack on music journalists in this week's cover story for Sydney's The Drum Media.

The Golden Plains headliner – real name Chan Marshall – told Tyler McLoughlan that she was disgusted with the speculation surrounding her recurring angioedema condition, which forced the cancellation of a European tour and sparked rumours of retirement – even though the Golden Plains promoters confirmed to us that there was “no reason for concern”.

“I am too old now to care about what, like, the press are saying,” Marshall said. “'Oh she cancelled a European tour because maybe she's on drugs, or an alcoholic, or she looked like shit on tour,' [to] which I wanna give a, wave a gigantic 'fuck you' flag because nobody knows that I was in the emergency room or a three-night hotel – so like hospital, I call it the hotel – a three-night hospital stay right before the concert, so fuck off!

“I wanna say fuck you to every journalist who judged me by the way that I looked. A journalist, my first show [of the Sun album tour], he said, he was even talking about my body language – like how it was wrong. I got his name; I could get his number. It's just like, I'm gonna send him a giant bag of shit and just be like, 'You're terrible at your job, you're not even a true witness, you know nothing about me and you're just full of judgement'.

“He should have been fired… Like there's the economy and all the fucking problems we have, the environment, you know what I mean? The last thing we need is somebody down my throat because I look like shit. What the fucker doesn't know but I was, you know, tryin' to survive…”

The singer – who will also play headline shows around the country – admitted that she now struggles giving interviews amidst her health issues and 'creative demons'.

“It's a long story and no one fuckin' believes me and it's very difficult, very painful to do interviews anymore actually. But everybody knows really how well I've been trying to work; I try hard, I've been trying to work and I've worked so hard on this record and I worked so hard on everything for this record and then ended up with my oesophagus closing up because of an allergy that happens when you get stressed.

“It's not a normal thing; normally people have heart attacks but that's what the doctors say was my next step, was like a – what do you call it? – stroke or heart attack… I feel like I have to really protect myself with the press now because of the lack of professionalism and like the cool story, you know, like because I was in an institution or whatever from stress before; people like to think I was a drug addict or something. You know what I'm sayin'? Sorry – I have a lot to protect… I'm doin' my best to be calm and try to, you know, do my job and try to reach people and connect and be fuckin' happy and healthy, you know.”

Read the full article here.