![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/abe06c9dd769d6a5c3ae401dba9831bfe1-charlixcx.rsquare.w330.jpg\")
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They say don\u2019t meet your heroes, but Charli XCX met one of hers while in the midst of a breakdown, and now she\u2019s collaborated with him twice this year. On the Fashion Neurosis<\/a> podcast, Charli described how she met avant-garde music icon John Cale for the first time. It started when she was working on the song \u201cHouse,\u201d for the Wuthering Heights soundtrack<\/a>, and remembered Cale saying, in a documentary, that he wanted to make his strings sound \u201cboth elegant and brutal.\u201d Given that she\u2019d had a similar goal for \u201cHouse,\u201d she suddenly had an idea. \u201cI thought, Do you think I could reach out to John Cale?\u201d she says to host Bella Freud. \u201cI started asking the question out loud, not sure what the answer would have been.\u201d She found a way to get into contact with him, and they set up a call.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, on the day of the chat, she forgot it was happening. \u201cThe day that we were supposed to speak, I was having a really bad day,\u201d Charli recalled. \u201cI was my very unregulated self.\u201d In the midst of crying with her husband, George Daniel, she got a call. \u201cI picked up the phone, and there was this voice on the end that was gravelly and deep and Welsh,\u201d she said. \u201cI was like, \u2018Who is this?\u2019\u201d It was John Cale. \u201cI was like, Oh my God, John Cale is calling me mid-breakdown,\u201d Charli remembered. \u201cI told him, \u2018I\u2019m having a bad day, John, but speaking to you on the phone is making me feel so much better.\u2019\u201d Clearly, it worked out. Cale ended up working with Charli on \u201cHouse\u201d and is now featured on the cover for her upcoming album, Music, Fashion, Film (out July 24), alongside Marc Jacobs and Martin Scorsese. Clearly, he gets what it\u2019s like to be an artist mid-breakdown.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Vulture Daily<\/p>\n An entertainment newsletter for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n