
IM ALWAYS LIKE, More, more, more, more, more, more. Doing it overload," says Charli XCX.
"But this week has been ... a lot." It's a Wednesday morning in late July, less than 72 hours after she offhandedly tweeted "kamala IS brat," accidentally redefining an entire presidential campaign, and Charli has invited me to a Le Labo-scented spa in West Hollywood to decompress. Her assistant booked us a private room for an hour under "Charlotte," the 32-year-old British artist's real name, which pretty much no one remembers anymore. She's dealing with a performance-related neck injury-"It flares up a lot when I'm stressed"-and things have been a bit stressful lately. Charli arrived in her black Porsche 911, wearing knee-high leather boots and big bitchy Khaite sunglasses; she was giving Balenciaga walk of shame, though she insists she didn't go out last night.
"This is a little... intimate, yeah?" she says before stripping down to an itty-bitty cheetah-print bikini and stepping into a sauna so awkwardly small I kind of can't believe it's designed for two people, let alone two strangers. She's barefaced, already sweating, her usual mountain of curly black hair extensions gone. It's 158 degrees.
"You're going to get me in a really vulnerable position. You can ask me something crazy," she says. It's a teasingly seductive invitation, but Charli is not about to expose herself any further.
Although she still refers to herself as an "underdog pop girl," her album Brat has gone so mainstream this summer that this veteran club rat seems anxious about how to both keep it going and stop it from crossing over into cringe in the process. "Sometimes you're the people's princess," she tells me. "And sometimes you're the villain." Ubiquity will run you hard.
Denne historien er fra August 26 - September 08, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra August 26 - September 08, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Home Sweet Home?
Meghan Markle pioneers new frontiers of unrelatability.

Going Stealth
Torrey Peters reimagines transness in a new collection.

Toni Morrison's Lost Play
Why did the novelist's only staged drama disappear for so long?

The Resilient Natasha Rothwell
The writer and actor returns to The White Lotus just as the show she created, How to Die Alone, has been canceled.

Maximum Capacity
Ha’s Snack Bar is already too full, but it’s also too good to ignore.

Odd Jobs
Bong Joon Ho sets a bitterly funny take on America in space.

Free Country Sam Adler-Bell
Playing Dead For Democratic leadership, giving up is the strategy.

MOVE FAST AND BREAK LAWS
SHAYNE COPLAN upended political polling on his way to creating the billion-dollar betting platform POLYMARKET. Maybe it's even legal.

COMMISH TISCH TO THE RESCUE
The NYPD's Jessica Tisch has spent her career quietly taking on intractable city problems— but what happens when the biggest problem is the mayor himself?

From Hot to Not
Chefs across the city are toning down the spice levels on their most fiery recipes.