Lorde pens open letter to fans as singer explains her private ‘heartbreak’

The Kiwi singer has released a lengthy open letter to fans, explaining her struggles as she is “living with heartbreak again”.

Lorde has released a heartbreaking update with her fans, explaining her mental health struggles. Picture: Joseph Okpako/WireImage

New Zealand singer Lorde has shared a rare open letter with fans detailing her private struggle in recent months.

The incredibly private pop star, 26, revealed she was currently living in London, where she was feeling homesick and “living with heartbreak again” in a lengthy statement seen by NZ Herald.

Lorde – real name Ella Yelich-O’Connor – suggested she had broken up with her long-term boyfriend, music executive Justin Warren. The pair have been linked together since 2015.

“I’m different but the same. I ache all the time, I forget why and then remember,” Lorde wrote in a note titled ‘How I’ve been, revised’, which was shared with her subscriber fanbase.

“I’m not trying to hide from the pain, I understand now that pain isn’t something to hide from, that there’s actually great beauty in moving with it. But sometimes I’m sick of being with myself.”

Justin Warren and Lorde pictured at an NBA game in New York in November 2021. Picture: Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images

It was thought the couple, who share a 17-year age gap, were engaged two years ago, after Lorde was seen wearing an engagement ring in October 2021.

They were last seen together in Sydney in early May while Lorde was embarking on the Australian leg of her Solar Power tour.

Lorde, who shot to fame as a teenager in 2012 with the release of her hit single Royals, also discussed her significant physical health issues in the letter. She said she recently stopped taking an undisclosed “little yellow pill” she’d taken daily since the age of 15.

“My body is really inflamed. It’s trying to tell me something and I’m trying to support it but nothing seems to help and I get frustrated,” Lorde wrote.

“My gut isn’t working properly, my skin is worse than ever, I’ve gotten sick half a dozen times. I realised earlier this year that listening to my body is hard for me, it’s something I never really learned how to do.

“The little yellow pill I took every morning for thousands of mornings since I was 15, I stopped taking it five days ago. Gonna see how it goes.”

Lorde opened up to her fans in the candid letter. Picture: Jim Dyson/Getty Images

Further, Lorde admitted to recreational drug use, including taking mushrooms which she said helped her discover “a lot of information about what my body had been through in our time so far.”

She continued, “What it [her body] needed, where God was and where God wasn’t; I felt in my bones how destabilising it is to leave home and start a new life the way I did.”

Elsewhere, Lorde admitted she texted her manager to cancel a recent appearance at Paris Fashion Week, fearing she was unable to fake a smile for cameras.

“At the start of my career I promised myself I’d never be one of the people in the light smiling if it wasn’t real,” she said of her last-minute pullout.

Lorde went on to discuss the role social media played in triggering negative thoughts. Currently, she has just two posts on her Instagram feed.

“Everyone looks very thin,” she wrote. “Just thinking that makes me feel tired and far away. I’m not sure if it’s having an effect on anyone else.”

The Kiwi singer pictured at the Met Gala in 2022. Picture: Theo Wargo/Getty Images/AFP

The Green Lights hit maker added she planned to head back to her native New Zealand soon, as she was “starting to miss my friends and family, like a vitamin I‘m deficient in”.

Despite the concerning email, Lorde assured her fans they needn’t “worry” about her.

“I‘m gonna look back on this year with fondness and a bit of awe, knowing it was the year that locked everything into place, the year that transitioned me from my childhood working decade to the one that comes next,” she wrote.

“I still laugh every day, it’s all moving, even when it goes slow. I’ve accepted the mission – I have a self to recover.”

Fans are eagerly awaiting news of Lorde’s fourth album. Picture: Supplied by Frontier Touring/Adelaide Festival

It comes as followers of the singer had been eagerly awaiting an announcement on new music.

Lorde released her third studio album, Solar Power, to much fanfare in 2021, with the album marking her first drop in four years following 2017’s Melodrama.

She recently confirmed she’s been working on a fourth album for some time, and hoped it would be finished sooner rather than later.

“It has taken me quite a while [to start working on it]. I mean, I do just take a long time … I do a lot of research, I write a lot down,” Lorde told Ensemble in February.

“Sort of a big chunk of work before I actually start writing music. So yeah, that’s been a really big part of it. It’s been super exciting and I feel excited about what’s coming.”