Lorde is opening up about how MDMA therapy helped her overcome debilitating stage fright, crediting the treatment with changing her relationship with live performance entirely.
During an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the pop star candidly discussed how she once suffered from “truly the most horrific stage fright” that dated back to her early childhood in community theatre. When Colbert asked how she got past it, Lorde didn’t hold back. “Well, it’s MDMA therapy,” she said. “Truly, like, changed the game on my stage fright."
Lorde explained how the treatment worked for her when other forms of healing hadn’t. “Some of these things live very deep in the body, and you hold on to it,” she said.
“You hold on to a response like stage fright for reasons that no amount of talk therapy or brain use could get at. But when you bypass that and get to the body, something shifts. And that totally happened for me.”
After trying “everything” for her anxiety around performing, Lorde said she woke up the day after her MDMA therapy and instantly felt the shift: “I was like, oh, it’s over. I know it’s over.”
The revelation comes as Lorde gears up for the release of her new album Virgin, out June 27 via Republic Records. She recently dropped the final pre-release single “Hammer” on June 20. The euphoric track, co-produced by Jim-E Stack, opens the album and has drawn comparisons to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” for its glitchy, electro-pop flair.
Lorde described “Hammer” as “an ode to city life and horniness tbh” and has promised that Virgin will explore themes of rebirth, gender, spiritual transformation, and bodily autonomy. The album also includes production from Fabiana Palladino, Dan Nigro, Buddy Ross and Dev Hynes of Blood Orange, among others.
She’s been open about how her recent life changes influenced the record, from quitting birth control and experiencing disordered eating to ending a long-term relationship. The project’s rawness is reflected in its visual aesthetic as well: “The colour of the album is clear,” she wrote when announcing it. “Like bathwater, windows, ice, spit. Full transparency.”
Virgin is out Friday, June 27, with a Renell Medrano-directed video for “Hammer” arriving the same day.
