Lorde Says She Doesn't Know If She's 'Ever Really Felt Like a Woman' in Candid Confession

Lorde is opening up about self-discovery like never before.

In a preview of her Tuesday, September 30, chat on “Take 5 with Zan Rowe,” the singer, who shot to fame at just 16 with her 2013 hit “Royals,” admitted she didn’t fully grasp the weight of her early success.

“I don’t totally understand that level of belief in myself, but I think you need that… that’s the thing about being a teenager. You just sort of do have this unchecked confidence,” she shared.

Now, 12 years later, Lorde is reflecting on how much has changed — both personally and professionally.

“I sit before you, a very different woman to the one I was before,” she told Rowe. “This cord cut between me and kind of femininity that I had been attached to for as long as I’d felt like a girl. I don't know if I’d ever really felt like a woman."

She shared that her latest album, Virgin, released on June 27, came from letting go of the things that no longer served her and exploring deeper questions about identity and womanhood.

One of the most powerful moments came when she talked about “Girl, So Confusing,” a track written by her friend Charli XCX that questioned their friendship.

The lyrics read, “I don’t know if you like me. Sometimes I think you might hate me. Sometimes I think I might hate you.”

Instead of taking it as shade, Lorde embraced it as a sign of closeness.

“It felt like an act of love,” she said.

The song clearly struck a chord with her.

“I felt this unmistakable mix of the love of someone putting you into a piece of art and this sort of sick feeling of hurting someone, and of being misunderstood,” she explained. “It still destroys me, I find it so heartbreaking and beautiful.”

Charli later broke down the meaning during an interview with BBC Radio 1.

“I was very aware when I put that song on the record that immediately people were going to view it as some kind of diss track, but actually if you take the time to listen to the lyrical content that's really not the case at all,” she clarified. “The song is about being confused with where you stand with another woman, and it's not about attacking their personality or anything about that other person, and I think the thing is, being a woman is very complex.”

Lorde couldn’t agree more.

“She was reaching out for me, and she grabbed me, and it was a bit of a crossroads moment of deciding what kind of woman I was going to be,” she said.

For her, the choice was obvious, adding, “I was like, the only way this song gets completed is with my voice.”