What happened between Lorde and Charli XCX? Singers find clarity after working things out on Girl, So Confusing remix

Lorde and Charli XCX seemed to have settled their alleged feud after working together on the Girl, So Confusing remix. Charli first released the song in June 2024 as part of her album Brat, leading to widespread speculation about who the song was directed at.

In the song, Charli talked about a friend whom she supposedly misses and spoke about being compared to someone. The lyrics read:

“People say we’re alike / They say we’ve got the same hair / We talk about making music / But I don’t know if it’s honest / Can’t tell if you wanna see me / Falling over and failing / And you can’t tell what you’re feeling / I think I know how you feel.”

It was later confirmed that the song was about Lorde as the two came together to record a remix of the track. The new remix included lines written by Lorde, and she confirmed to Billboard that the track was indeed about her. She also mentioned that the two friends have found clarity after recording the remix. In the July 2024 interview with Billboard, Lorde said—

"There was such a rawness and an immediacy to what I was saying. I love that we truly did work it out on the remix. There’s something very brat about that, something very meta and modern. Only Charli could make that happen. She had opened up a channel between us, and it made me say things that I had never said.”

Although neither of them explicitly revealed what went wrong between them, Charli XCX once explained in a May 2024 interview with Rolling Stone that she was compared to Lorde a lot when she first came to light in 2014, which led to jealousy on her side.

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Lorde and Charli XCX's reportedly beef began in 2013

Lorde and Charli XCX's feud reportedly goes back to 2013, when the former released the song Royals. The song quickly became popular among the audience and ruled the Billboard 200 chart.

Charli XCX also received a big boost in career at the same time as she collaborated with Icona Pop for her track I Love It. Fans began noticing the supposed similarity in physical appearance between Charli XCX and the New Zealand singer.

In 2014, an interviewer confused Charli for Lorde and asked the popstar how she came up with Royals. The pop star hilariously led on the joke and pretended to be the New Zealand singer.

In a May 2024 interview with Rolling Stone UK, Charli XCX admitted to being jealous of Lorde when she came to the limelight in 2013 with Royals. The singer talked about how she was always compared to the New Zealand pop star and felt her fame could have been hers. She said:

“When ‘Royals’ came out, I was super jealous of the success that that song got, and that Ella got. You piece all this stuff together in your brain, like: ‘She was into my music. She had big hair; I had big hair. She wore black lipstick; I once wore black lipstick."

She added that the parallels made her feel it could have been her. However, the two singers were "completely different people" and her music was not similar to the popstar's Royals, for instance. Charli also admitted that it was only because of her own insecurities that it was happening.

However, Charli XCX clarified to Rolling Stone UK that they are on good terms and have moved past their previous problems. Days later, the pop star dropped her album Brat including the song Girl, So Confusing.

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Charli XCX and Lorde's collaboration for the Girl, So Confusing remix was the latter's idea

Charli XCX at the Glastonbury Festival 2022 - Day Five (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images)

On June 5, 2024, Charli XCX appeared on the hit podcast Las Culturistas by Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers and teased the identity of the one Girl So Confusing was about. She said she initially thought of revealing the identity but later decided against it as she wanted her fans to guess it.

The singer teased that fans usually have an accurate guess, and when they come up with a name, "it’s probably going to be that person.” On June 7, Charli released her album, Brat. On June 11, Lorde was spotted at one of the singer's concerts in New York. Charli performed Girl, So Confusing in the concert.

Following the track's release, Charli XCX also told Billboard about the song and revealed that she had already informed Lorde that the track would be about her and if she was okay with it. She said:

"I had to go through the process of telling her that this song is about her and her being OK with that first. I was trying to meet up with her for almost a year, and we kept having this weird, like, we were [going to], then we wouldn’t. It spoke to the narrative of the song itself. In the end, it didn’t work out."

The Brat singer mentioned that she left a voice note for the Royals singer a day after the song was released. Lorde immediately reconciled with Charli and suggested that she should be on the remix version of the song, leading to the two collaborating for an upgraded version.

Finally, on June 21, 2024, Charli XCX took to social media to officially announce the remix version of Girl, So Confusing featuring Lorde. The new version includes new lyrics from the New Zealand singer's side and almost sounds like a conversation between the two.

The lyrics allegedly throw light on what went wrong between the two as it supposedly refers to multiple instances of misunderstandings. Charli XCX sings on the track:

“I don’t know if you like me/ Sometimes I think you might hate me/ Sometimes I think I might hate you.”

Lorde responds with her lines:

“You’d always say, ‘Let’s go out’/ But then I’d cancel last minute/ I was so lost in my head/ And scared to be in your pictures.”

Lorde explained in her Billboard interview that through the lyrics, she "opened up" about the reasons she had pulled away from their friendship. She called it a "huge honor" to be able to feature in the song.