It's appropriate that Charlie XCX accompanied her post on X about the “realities of a pop star” with a photo of Lou Reed, the enigmatic frontman of the Velvet Underground. The image is a screenshot of Reed from 1974 interview where he answers quick questions as succinctly and sluggishly as possible, much to the chagrin of the frenzied journalists huddled around him. Like Charlie, who once said that she wanted to do “Lou Reed record“You could say it's art, baby.
In it new Substack published on FridayCharlie starts with a few clarifications. While she writes that “being a pop star, like most jobs in this world, has its pros and cons,” she says, “I don't view what I do as a 'job,' and secondly, I don't actually consider myself a pure pop star, I'm just using that terminology specifically for this article.” Instead, she prefers to describe herself “more as a 'creative' (raw) or, more simply put, an artist.” However, in her essay, she focuses “solely on the realities of being a pop star because it was my original dream, because it is the role in my life with which I have the most experience, and because it is also the most ridiculous.”
First, she addresses the obvious: being a pop star is “fucking fun.” Charlie goes on to list the benefits of performing: partying in a black SUV and “all that corny shit”; meeting interesting people, and “these interesting people often really want to meet you”; getting “free crap” such as phones, trips, clothes and gummies; walking into restaurants through the back door with your best friends and smiling at the staff (who probably “hate you”); and listening to Addison Rae's “Diet Pepsi” before its release. She also adds that yes: “You may feel special, but sometimes you also have to feel embarrassed by how stupid it all is.”
However, Charlie acknowledges that there's more to it than that, and nods to her fans and how their “dedication to their work makes you feel like they're going to be there for you until the end of time, even though they're not,” adding that performing on stage can make you “feel like God.” She says, “You can make people cry with happiness, you give voice to their breakups, their recovery, their crazy nights, their revenge, their love, their life.”
Brother The singer then moves on to time spent “on the road,” comparing the pop star's time spent moving from one thing to another to feeling like a commodity inhabiting “strange and soulless liminal spaces.” She gives the example of Rachel Sennott coming to film a scene in the upcoming mockumentary Charlie. Moment “Packed in blankets and pillows and sent directly to us as a parcel.”
The public's perception of her as a pop star also made Charli “think about who I used to be compared to who I am now.” Old friends and family members have a way of putting you down, she notes; after asking Yung Lean if he thought she had changed, he replied in a text message that while she was still the same person he knew when they were younger, “yes, people” around her are “blowing smoke” up her ass.
Concluding her reflections on life as a pop star, she muses that while you're “expected to be completely truthful at all times”, all of her favorite artists are “absolutely not role models and I wouldn't want them to be, but maybe that's just me.”
“I want hedonism, danger and a sense of anti-establishment to accompany my artists, because when I was younger, I wanted to escape through them,” she adds. “For me, that’s the essence, that’s the drama, that’s the fun, that’s the FANTASY.”
She offers a link to Reeds. interview from the seventiesbefore asking and answering, “Is this an act? Is it true? Is it a lie? Who cares? I think it's just funny and cool.”
When Speaking To Vanity Fair O Moment Last month, Charlie once again broke the line between fact and fiction and said: “This is by no means a tour or concert documentary, but the seed of the idea was planted in the idea that he would be pressured to make one.” She added: “It's fiction, but it's the most real portrayal of the music industry I've ever seen.”
