Brat star Charli XCX has said she is currently “in the worst place mentally that I’ve been in my life”.
The 33-year-old, whose real name is Charlotte Aitchison, also said she is planning to make her next tour less physically draining, adding that she has a “complicated relationship” with being on stage.
She suffered nerve damage in her neck on her last tour due to “rolling around on the floor”.
The singer launched a cultural moment in “Brat summer” with the release of her 2024 album Brat, causing a frenzy on social media that involved sultry fashion choices inspired by the green-and-black album cover.
The Cambridge-born star told Rolling Stone that she has been using social media less as she tries to improve her mental health.
“I have actually been a lot more offline, I don’t really look as much anymore. It’s just better for my brain,” she said.
“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.”
Charli XCX, who is currently preparing to release her new album Music, Fashion, Film, on 24 July, also said she is a “big believer” in therapy to deal with her mental health problems – but said she needs to go more often.
She told Rolling Stone she has reduced her coffee consumption to ease anxiety.
She said she is also planning to cut back on media interviews and is not interested in discussing the meaning behind her songs.
The 360 singer added: “It’s just how I feel. People already think I’m a b****, so… I’m very much at peace with it. It’s cool, and it’s not drama or anything like that.
“It’s just me trying to do what’s good for me, because it got to a place where my anxiety was physically affecting me, and I can’t actually proceed in life like that.”
The new album follows Charli XCX’s Wuthering Heights companion record to Emerald Fennell’s film of the same name earlier this year, as well as her film The Moment, a semi-fictional look at the release of Brat and the world tour that followed.
She has also appeared in other film projects this year, including Pete Ohs’s Erupcja and Julia Jackman’s 100 Nights of Hero.
Source: Press Association
If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.