Lorde Details Why She’s ‘Not Built For Pop Star Life’

Lorde has been one of pop’s most revered figures of the past decade, but the way she sees it, she’s not really “built for the pop star life.”

She established and explained that stance in a new Vogue feature, in which she says:

“I’m great at my job, but I’m not sure I’m the man for the job. I’m a highly sensitive person. I’m not built for pop star life. To have a public-facing existence is something I find really intense and is something I’m not good at. That natural charisma is not what I have. I have the brain in the jar. But for whatever reason, people have allowed me to say, ‘Okay, I’m going to come and do the thing — do the shoot, do the red carpet, speak to the journalists, put the music out,’ and when I’ve done it to the point of total exhaustion, when I have completely quenched that thirst, I’m going to go home, and you’re not going to see me for two or three or four years. I’ll be doing the other thing, which is being there for every single birthday and dinner party and cooking every single meal and going on every single walk and taking every single bath. And when I’ve done that, and I’m like, all right, that’s enough of that for a little while, I’ll come back again.”

Ophelia Mikkelson Jones, a friend of Lorde and the photographer who snapped the Solar Power album art photo, shared her thoughts on that assessment, saying, “I totally agree and disagree with Ella that she’s not suited for celebrity. She’s a shy and reserved woman, but she has this incredible intelligence. She’s so alert, always awake and watching, and she has the most insane memory. I’m stoked by the idea that someone in her position would have these qualities, and they also make her a great friend.”

Find the full profile here.