1.
Image via David Bowie’s Facebook
On November 5, 2013, actress Tilda Swinton celebrated her 53rd birthday at a Museum of Modern Art Film gala in her honor. It was on that night that a 16-year-old Lorde met one of her idols, David Bowie. In light of his passing, Lorde took to Facebook to reminisce about meeting Bowie, whom she called “an old rock and roll alien angel in a perfect grey suit.”
Lorde—who at that point had only released breakout single “Royals” half a year earlier—wrote about the profound impact that meeting Bowie had on her perception of her career and life from that point on, because she felt like he had become her de facto guardian angel in that moment:
I’ve never met a hero of mine and liked it. It just sucks, the pressure is too huge, you can’t enjoy it. David was different. I’ll never forget the caressing of our hands as we spoke, or the light in his eyes. That night something changed in me – i felt a calmness grow, a sureness. I think in those brief moments, he heralded me into my next new life, an old rock and roll alien angel in a perfect grey suit. I realized everything I’d ever done, or would do from then on, would be done like maybe he was watching. I realized I was proud of my spiky strangeness because he had been proud of his. And I know I’m never going to stop learning dances, brand new dances.
Read Lorde’s Facebook post in full below.
3.
