Charli XCX Admits She's in the 'Worst Place Mentally' She's Ever Been, Nearly Quit Music After 'Brat' - Just Jared - Celebrity News and Gossip

Charli xcx is getting very honest about life after Brat.

The 33-year-old Pop 2 superstar got candid in a new Rolling Stone cover story about her life, out now.

During the conversation, she spoke about life after the whirlwind success of her 2024 studio album, discourse about her “rock album” and declaring that the “dance floor is dead” on a song, not wanting to explain the meaning behind her music, friendships in the industry, and much more.

Find out what Charli xcx had to say…

On life after Brat and refusing to repeat herself:

“All of my albums work in opposites. They repel against each other, and that’s the connective tissue.”

“I knew when I was making it that I was never going to make that record again. It’s not creatively rewarding for me to make the same thing twice.”

On her upcoming album and the ‘rock album’ conversation:

“Obviously, I know that there’s been a lot of conversation around me making a rock album, which is something that I never said. But to be honest, I’ve never thought about genre in a binary way. I find that to be a very old-school notion. I don’t even know what the genre is. It’s just me and A. G. Cook and Finn Keane, doing our thing.”

On the lyric ‘The dance floor is dead’:

“That lyric is very much about my relationship with Brat, and my personal experience with that album. My husband runs a dance-music label. There’s been such a wealth of incredible dance/electronic-adjacent records that have been coming out recently, whether it’s Slayyyter or Underscores or PinkPantheress. Dance music is in an incredible place.”

On being in the worst mental health state of her life:

“I have actually been a lot more offline. I don’t really look as much anymore. It’s just better for my brain. I know people probably won’t believe me, because I am inherently, at least in the past, a very online artist. But I recently have been really struggling with my mental health to the point where, if I’m being real, I’m in the worst place mentally that I’ve been in my life.”

On nearly quitting music after Brat:

“I was really, really ready to peace out and take a break and not make music. I felt very creatively drained and not inspired to write anything new. Then suddenly, inspiration came.”

On her relationship with longtime collaborator A. G. Cook:

“We communicate our friendship to each other when we make things.”

On not wanting to explain the meaning behind her work:

“I don’t really feel the need to explain my intentions behind anything I do. But I’ll just say I find that things can be earnest and funny at the same time, and they don’t have to exclusively live separately. That’s how I feel about a lot of my work, and if people interpret that as trolling, then that’s fine.”

On stepping away from interviews and discourse:

“The discourse is loud, and sometimes that can be very overwhelming. This is probably going to be my last long-form interview with a journalist for a minute. You got in there right at the end.”

On fame before and after Brat:

“I don’t have a Miley Cyrus ‘hopped-off-the-plane-at-LAX’ kind of memory. Before Brat, I was the girl who sang ‘Boom Clap’ to people who didn’t really know me. And now to people who know me from just Brat, I’m the girl who smokes and wears sunglasses and likes the color green.”

On success feeling restrictive:

“It’s funny the way that success can cage you, but I’ve ­experienced such a wide range of success and failure. For the people who knew me before Brat, they know the ebbs and flows of my process, and I understand the ebbs and flows of pop music and pop culture. So I feel relatively free in creating whatever I’ll do next.”

On the death of Sophie, grief and loss:

“I lost some­one who completely changed my life, and there are a lot of feelings to work through with that, especially because they were so attached to my creative life in a really positive way, but also sometimes in a difficult way. Being able to express those feelings through my work has been really cathartic for me. Grief is a funny thing for anyone who goes through it.”

On mortality:

“I’m of this mindset at the moment that my life will end, as will all of our lives. I want to live my life exactly the way that I want to live it, because I don’t get a redo.”

On feeling emotional during the interview:

“I am finding it tough to … I don’t know. I’m finding my emotions are very, very volatile at the minute, I’ll be honest. You’ve been great. You’ve been really kind and so respectful. It makes me emotional, actually. I don’t always feel safe doing this stuff, but you’ve made me feel pretty safe.”

On acting and wanting to learn on set:

“I’m desperate to learn and experience a wide variety of things on set. I want to soak everything up like a sponge.”

On movies and escapism:

“I’m definitely not a snob when it comes to movies. My taste is all over the place. My dream weekend is getting up late and watching like four films back-to-back, and ordering food. It’s like escaping into another world.”

On Sweden:

“You know what I really want to do actually, so badly? I really want to go to Sweden in the summer. Whenever I go there, I feel this sense of being grounded. A lot of the Scandi people that I know have a very refreshing take on life and on existing in the world.”

On artists she’s happy to see succeeding:

“There’s been a lot of artists who have been doing things for a long time, who are having their moment now. Like Zara [Larsson]. I’m so f–king happy for her. And someone who I totally ride for is Raye.”

On her years-long friendship with Raye:

“There was a time in our lives when we were together a lot. And her journey, becoming an independent artist and doing her thing, is really cool.”

On John Cale:

“I just feel really honored to know him. It’s like, ‘What the f–k?’”

She recently announced that she’s going on tour.

Posted To:Charli XCX Music