Lorde has recalled how she felt like "every bite of food was stolen" at the height of her body image struggles.
In an interview with artist Martine Syms for Document Journal published on Thursday, the New Zealand-born singer-songwriter spoke candidly about her experiences while making her third studio album, Solar Power, in 2021.
"I had made my body very small, because I thought that that was what you did as a woman and a woman on display. I thought, 'I'm small. This will communicate to people that I'm taking my position seriously.' It had the effect of making me (feel) totally ungrounded," she said. "I was very weak. I look back now, and I don't have that same feeling of floating away. I eat as much as I want and need now. I wasn't very embodied."
"I often would think about not eating very much as I felt like every bite of food I had was stolen. I was like, 'Hang on, this has gotten weird,'" the 28-year-old continued.
Lorde, real name Ella Yelich-O'Connor, went on to explain that she has worked on her body image issues in recent years and harnessed a much more positive perspective while working on her upcoming album, Virgin.
"It was like, 'I'm not going to put anything out until I'm in my body the way I know I'm supposed to be, to be able to do my work.' That's all I did the last four years, basically," she mused. "This album is a by-product of that process of fully coming into my body and feeling the fullness of my power. It's cool to be back in that place of, like, the portal opening and the weight. I'm myself. All these parts of me are represented in a bunch of different ways. I'm not hiding from myself."
Virgin is set to drop on 27 June.