As anticipation builds for her upcoming album Virgin, Lorde is letting fans in on some of the deeply personal growth she’s experienced in recent years — from exploring her gender identity to healing from an eating disorder.
In a new Rolling Stone cover story published May 15, the New Zealand singer-songwriter shared that she’s developed a close friendship with rising pop star Chappell Roan. Their connection has allowed Lorde to open up about her evolving sense of gender.
“[Chappell Roan] asked me this… She was like, ‘So, are you nonbinary now?’” Lorde recalled. “I was like, ‘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.”
While Lorde still identifies as a cisgender woman and uses “she” and “her” pronouns, her experience of gender has become more fluid — a theme that reportedly runs throughout Virgin, out June 27. According to Rolling Stone, the album’s opening line reads, “Some days I’m a woman / Some days I’m a man.”
The 27-year-old artist emphasized that while her journey with gender is meaningful to her personally, she remains aware of her privilege and doesn’t view her experience as revolutionary.
“I see these incredibly brave young people, and it’s complicated,” she said. “Making the expression privately is one thing, but I want to make very clear that I’m not trying to take any space from anyone who has more on the line than me. Because I’m, comparatively, in a very safe place as a wealthy, cis, white woman.”
This new era marks more than just musical growth for Lorde — it’s also a chapter of emotional and physical healing. She confirmed in the interview that she has recovered from an eating disorder, an issue that intensified around the release of her 2021 album Solar Power.
“I felt so hungry and so weak,” she said, recalling the day the album dropped. “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.”
The star also opened up about another life change: the end of her eight-year relationship with Universal Music executive Justin Warren. “It was so painful, as they are, but there was real dignity to it,” she shared.
From emotional honesty to musical reinvention, Lorde’s Virgin promises to be one of her most personal projects yet — a bold evolution from a woman who’s never shied away from growth.