Lorde Says She “Fucked Up” With That T-Swift / Autoimmune Disease Analogy

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June 20, 2017

Human angel Lorde – and I will fight anyone who says otherwise – has apologised for an admittedly clumsy and insensitive analogy that having famous friends was like having a mate with “very specific allergies” or “an autoimmune disease”.

The original comments were part of a major profile published in The Guardian over the weekend.

Since shooting to fame in 2013, Lorde has noticeably picked up a few famous friends, in particular Taylor Swift. The whole schtick of her sophomore album ‘Melodrama‘ was about returning to hew New Zealand roots and figuring out who she was as an artist since shooting to fame. So naturally, The Guardian asked her to comment on how she manages her famous friendships vs her old ones:

Here’s the exact pull-quote:

On the difficulty of maintaining a friendship with someone as famous as Taylor Swift: “It’s like having a friend with very specific allergies. There are certain places you can’t go together. Certain things you can’t do. There are these different sets of considerations within the friendship. It’s like having a friend with an autoimmune disease.”

Most media outlets – PEDESTRIAN.TV included – ran with the angle that Lorde specifically compared her friendship with Taylor Swift to having an autoimmune disease etc.

Since being criticised for her comments, Lorde has fronted up and apologised, saying she “fucked up” when giving a “really insensitive” analogy.

didn’t mention taylor, but regardless, i fucked up & that was really insensitive. i’m sorry ??

— Lorde (@lorde) June 20, 2017

She also says she never mentioned T-Swift, so it looks like we all jumped the gun there.

For the record, the term ‘autoimmune disease’ is an umbrella term that includes diseases like lupus, celiac disease, type 1 diabetes, Graves disease, inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis. Lorde’s intention might have been to describe the uniquely difficult challenge of navigating a friendship with someone über famous, but by doing so she made light of very serious and often difficult to manage diseases that affect thousands upon thousands of people.

Onya for apologising Ella.

Photo: Jim Spellman / Getty.