Lorde did not walk the red carpet at the Grammys. I kind of think she didn’t walk because she was pissed at the Grammys, which I’ll get to in a moment. She did wear a pretty dress – a red Valentino – and she sat with her brother and the producer of her album, Jack Antonoff. Jack brought his sibling as his official date too, his sister. A few days ago, Us Weekly reported that Jack Antonoff does have a new girlfriend post-Lena Dunham, and that girlfriend is… model Carlotta Kohl. Us Weekly has photos of Jack and Carlotta together in New York. Which is pretty good evidence, except that Jack and Lorde basically spent all of Grammy weekend together, which made it seem like their coming out as a couple.
As for why Lorde was probably pissed at the Grammys – she was nominated for Album of the Year, and she lost to Bruno Mars, but that’s not why. She was the sole female nominee in that category and Grammy producers asked her to perform… but not solo. The Grammys tried to force her to perform as part of the Tom Petty tribute and she refused, which is completely understandable. Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich tried to justify the screw-up, saying: “It’s hard to have a balanced year and have everyone perform. We can’t have every nominee perform. These shows are always a matter of choices. She had a great album, but there’s no way we can deal with everybody. Maybe people get left out who shouldn’t, but we do the best we can to make sure it’s a fair and balanced show.” To which I say… the producers managed to find time for Sting and Shaggy to get something like 10 minutes of airtime. Surely they could have allowed the ONLY female AOTY nominee a solo performance slot?
As for this Valentino dress, Lorde had a #TimesUp message sewn onto the back, a quote from Jenny Holzer’s “Inflammatory Essays”: “Rejoice! Our times are intolerable. Take coverage for the worst is a harbinger of the best. Only dire circumstance can precipitate the overthrow of oppressors. The old and corrupt must be laid to waste before the just can triumph. Contradiction will be heightened. The reckoning will be hastened by the staging of seed disturbances. The apocalypse will blossom.” She posted the message to Instagram:
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Jenny Holzer is the best.
That’s the crappiest excuse for not treating their nominated artists right.
And Lorde is truly badass for refusing something she wasn’t comfortable with.
Album nominees always perform and I think always solo. It’s the biggest award. Forcing Lorde to do a group tribute for someone who she’s probably not a big fan of is ridiculous. A skit couldn’t be taken out?
It is an insult, and she was right not to perform. Shaggy? Really.
And no offense to either but favoring Sting and Bono is…more evidence that the Grammy voters are old and stale.
Serious question, but does Lorde have a hit song currently? Where I live, we haven’t really heard anything from her since Royals.
Green Light was fairly popular at some point but her new album doesn’t seem to be as popular as the first.
Here in N.Y I don’t think they played her latest music.
Does it matter? If you’re nominated for album of the year, then you should get to perform.
And her newest album, “Melodrama”, is a modern classic, IMO.
I guess it matters to the producers that want to get ratings, in their mind if you put a great artist whose song the TV audience won’t know, they will switch channels. I think they are wrong though, people who watch the Grammys enjoy watching artists perform and if they do a good job then you’ll get to like songs you might haven’t heard before.
My question in any case was so I could check out her new album, I haven’t really heard anything from here where I live so I was surprised to see she was even nominated.
I absolutely love her.
I think they are very close friends who drift into sexual territory sometimes but I am not sure it is a full relationship. I have a very close guy best friend who no one believed we weren’t a couple because we get along so well but we flirted around with romance, but we work better as friends. Besides, we know each other so well, too well to find each other’s faults tolerable in a relationship not to mention all the less than stellar things we have done in the past. 15 years is nearly half my life, and he knows the dirt. lol
We are affectionate and familiar with each other which hasn’t been easy on the people we dated in the past, but he’s more like my twin brother than anything I guess. It is hard to explain.
Maybe Lorde and Jack are like that. It is a possibility, or they could be a thing, but Lena is supposedly dating around and has been so there is no reason to think she cares. Or the model could be a PR ruse. The photo is very PR friendly. Denials are worthless and almost like an automatic message you get when you send an email to a company and get the auto-response saying they received your email.
I find it really stupefying that people really can’t tolerate the idea that they are really really good friends. I have the same kind of relationship with my best friend from school who is a very good looking man. We never ever had any physical relationship nor a platonic one for that matter. It’s so infantile. Particularly in these contexts where people work late hours and share really close stuff bc of writing.
Ready to eat my hat if they do date though.
I think it might be the public aspect of their friendship that confuses people.
In real life, men and women can be close without anything sexual/romantic going on, but those friendships aren’t “performed” (?) in public. I could be wrong though. Maybe Instagram and Youtube has changed the game for people so maybe there are non-famous people who are being really fawning with each other for the public to gossip about.
Anyway, I get why he’d be attracted to her. I have no idea why she’d be attracted to him though. Yeah, he’s talented (well, that’s everyone says, so I’ll believe it), but she’s surrounded by lots of talented people who are better-looking and weren’t in love with Lena Dunham.
Magnolia, how curious. I’m sure you get younger as the posts go by.
Lol, Kali! 😂
People find it almost impossible to understand that others don’t have to behave the way *they* would behave in any given situation. If people would love to be with someone who is sexy or funny or kind or intelligent then they can’t believe that someone else may not crave a similar relationship with that person.
That’s how it is with my work husband. By the time we were both single at the same time, we knew each other other’s flaws to well to actually be interested.
I think it’s inevitable that two people with a similar orientation who are emotionally close will likely have some very mild “romantic” overlap, i.e. they tend to be a little more physically demonstrative with each other and have occasionally flirtatious overtones to their interactions, but it doesn’t mean it ever evolves into overt sexual attraction.
I have a number of close male friends that most people assume or have assumed at some point that there is something going on. There isn’t. There never has been. Not the slightest sign of sexual anything. We might adore each other as people, hang out constantly, be affectionate with each other, be there for one another, but there is nothing romantic or sexual. We vibe off each other as close friends but not sexually. My closest male friend used to get really annoyed about it because everyone in his life assumed we were just keeping “it” a secret (the people in my life are used to me having close male mates – I’ve had them all my life). I’m not his type, he’s not mine. He’s my brother from another mother. The thought of anything sexual with him gives me the icks and he is the same about me. When people spend a bit more time with us they realise that it will never happen, has never happened, etc. I don’t know why people find it so hard to accept that males and females can have extraordinarily close friendships without the slightest bit of sex or romance involved. You know if this was Kanye going on about Jay-Z back in the day no one would have thought they had something going on. I’m ready to believe that Lorde and Jack are just great friends, collaborators, etc. Perhaps they do have something, but there’s just a good a chance that they are what they say they are: friends.
I love how comfortable in her own skin she looks. Gone is the sullen teenager it seems.
Sting got to perform twice-U2 got to perform on a barge (which do they even have anything out right now?) But the Grammys couldn’t find the time to have Lorde song by herself. Okay sure.
And Melodrama might not have gotten as much airplay but it really is excellent.
I agree!
hate to defend u2 but yes, they put out a new record at the end of last year. kendrick had them on his album, too.
Sam Smith, who got no nomination at all, got to perform on his own. They could very well have given his slot to her.
Anyway, Neil Portnow went on and on about Grammy’s “excellence” and yet they keep rewarding mediocre performers.
And yes, I’m still bitter on Kendrick’s behalf being robbed for the THIRD time), and even thought I also love Bruno, 24K Magic was his weakest album.
Lorde you should have flipped them off. I hope you did!!!! I know I am aging myself here but when I watched the Grammy’s in the 80’s & 90’s it seemed that all the major artists nominated performed. Now, they just put the oddest selection of “stars” up there that have no rhyme or reason. I love Sting but WTH did he need to perform there. I thought this Shaggy thing was a joke. OMG, It’s not a joke! I am sick for her.
Legit question – the last time she performed at an awards show didn’t she skip singing altogether and just prance around the stage instead? If I’m remembering that correctly then I honestly don’t blame them for not inviting her to perform solo.
I think she was ill and had lost her voice, she made a (possibly bad) decision to perform anyway.
Ok, I really really hate Lena Dunham but Jack’s new girlfriend must really be such a smack in the face and just the proof in the pudding that he used her to get to where he is. He even said it in one of his first win speeches that he thanks her for letting him crash on her couch for x amount of time until the band he was in (FUN) made it.
Have you guys seen her godawful performance at the VMAs? Prancing around like an idiot for the sake of art is not exactly worthy of a solo Grammys slot, especially when you have great performers like Bruno Mars and Kendrick or popular hits like Wild Thoughts..
Why does she look 30?
Because she doesn’t look 30
Clumsy attempt to throw shade
Love that quote and the she incorporated it into her styling. Gorgeous.
Lorde already tried my patience. She acts like a total jerk more than you would think. Not just talking about the Grammy stuff. She isn’t a good person. her music also hella sucks nowdays… pass!
Did anyone notice the look on her face when they cut to her during Pink’s performance? She looked very…unimpressed. Made me wonder if they have some bad blood.
Lorde’s reaction to Pink performance was terribly rude. I guess she hasn’t changed that much (as she is still very young) – remember her slamming Selena among many other artists? She’s entitled to her opinions, no doubt, but this is just a matter of decorum and playing the rules of your own profession.
Anecdotal: I was once cast in a musical as a supporting role and I was upset about it, but the director told me that just because I was part of a supporting cast, she was the director and would make sure that I received the “spotlight” I deserved.
Why did I mention this? Well, nobody has any idea what part of the Tom Petty performance Lorde might have played – she could’ve had a MAJOR role in the performance. It could’ve been a moment like Kesha and the other amazing females that decided to come together to present a moving moment.
Maybe Lorde’s schedule didn’t mesh up with what the producers wanted for her to have an individual performance, especially after her last opportunity to perform solo went so poorly. And, frankly, she doesn’t really have a “single” from her most recent album that would make a producer want to slot her in a solo slot. She’s also not a really great performer – better in concert, but not anything captivating for a quick-shot on TV.
I wish her luck on her upcoming tour, but I feel if it is successful it will be more in part to the fanbase of her opening act (Run the Jewels), than her alone. And she was acting like a total brat during the telecast, especially after Pink’s performance. Maybe she should’ve called her bestie Swifty to help her get a solo performance …