Lorde Opens Up About Gender Identity & Eating Disorder
Lorde stated that she feels “in the middle, gender-wise.”
Lorde (Credit: Thistle Brown)
Lorde is preparing to release her first album in four years, Virgin, and embark on a world tour.
As we get closer to the album’s release—27 June 2025—the Royals singer will continue promoting it through interviews. In a cover story chat with Rolling Stone, Lorde dug deep and expressed thoughts on her gender identity and past eating disorder.
The making of her forthcoming album was intense and deeply personal. While dealing with a major break-up and facing an eating disorder head-on, Lorde also ended up exploring her gender identity, which is outlined on the album.
“My gender got way more expansive when I gave my body more room,” Lorde revealed. A lyric on the album's opening track finds her singing, “Some days I’m a woman/Some days I’m a man.” When asked if she identifies as non-binary, Lorde mentioned a recent conversation with Chappell Roan about the subject.
“She was like, ‘So, are you non-binary now?’ And I was like, ‘I’m a woman except for the days when I’m a man,’” Lorde answered. “I know that’s not a very satisfying answer, but there’s a part of me that is really resistant to boxing it up.”
Elsewhere, Lorde admitted that she hadn’t changed her pronouns and referred to herself as a cis woman, despite stating that she feels “in the middle, gender-wise.”
Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter
In addition to ruminating on her feelings around gender, Lorde opened up about having an eating disorder that left her feeling “hungry and weak.”
The singer admitted that MDMA and psilocybin therapy helped her deal with stage fright and reconnect with her audience, but she still obsessively tried to control her weight.
“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,” she said.
Lorde began dealing with her eating disorder after moving to New York to work on new music. After realising that it was a self-imposed method to stay small, she allowed herself to make more space in her life and continue facing her issues head-on.
You can read the full Rolling Stone interview here.
Upon announcing the release of Virgin earlier this month, Lorde said of the inspirations:
THE COLOUR OF THE ALBUM IS CLEAR. LIKE BATHWATER, WINDOWS, ICE, SPIT. FULL TRANSPARENCY. THE LANGUAGE IS PLAIN AND UNSENTIMENTAL. THE SOUNDS ARE THE SAME WHEREVER POSSIBLE. I WAS TRYING TO SEE MYSELF, ALL THE WAY THROUGH.
I WAS TRYING TO MAKE A DOCUMENT THAT REFLECTED MY FEMININITY: RAW, PRIMAL, INNOCENT, ELEGANT, OPENHEARTED, SPIRITUAL, MASC. I’M PROUD AND SCARED OF THIS ALBUM. THERE’S NOWHERE TO HIDE. I BELIEVE THAT PUTTING THE DEEPEST PARTS OF OURSELVES TO MUSIC IS WHAT SETS US FREE.
Lorde produced the album with Jim-E Stack and locked in additional collaborations with Fabiana Palladino, Dan Nigro (Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan), Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes (Turnstile), Andrew Aged, and Buddy Ross.
She went on to say that Virgin was mixed by Spike Stent and Tom Elmhirst, mastered by Chris Gehringer, and “100% WRITTEN IN BLOOD.”
You can pre-order/pre-save the album here.
This article mentions eating disorders, which may trouble some readers. If you or somebody you know is affected by these issues, please get in touch with The Butterfly Foundation or resources such as Eating Disorders Victoria or Reach Out.
More From Our Network
