And I don't think people understand how easy it is to infer that someone who's a female artist or a female in our industry is somehow doing something wrong by wanting love, wanting money, wanting success.

Women are not allowed to want those things the way that men are allowed to want them.

Are you an emo kid?

I was actually at the most emo dinner party the other night because Brendan, Yuri and Sarah, his amazing wife, like had me over.

I show up and it's like Brendan and Pete Wentz sitting next to each other and I just got to ask them every single question.

Pete Wentz is probably, if I had to pick a favorite lyricist, it would be a tie between him and Lana Del Rey.

Blank Space is a song that's just zingers, one after another after another, which I definitely learned from listening to Fall Out Boy.

Congratulations first and foremost on the success of Lover because there's no guarantees even for someone as successful and talented as yourself.

time you release music you open it up to the you know to the universe and you hope it's discovered yeah and actually an interesting dynamic happens between you and your previous work and it it happens as soon as you put out your second record everything you do is a standing ovation on your first record if you're having that breakthrough record and then you put out your second body of work and then you realize that everything you're putting out now is being compared to what they liked about your first record but then you put out the third one and then it's compared to the first two then you put out the fourth one then it's compared to the first three and it goes on and on and on by the time you're at album seven you are so you have such a strange convoluted relationship with your previous work because you're like damn it all too well was a good song and i knew with this album it was it was it was like something that was almost a return to form like reputation was such an important record for me because i i couldn't stop writing and i and like I needed to write that album and I needed to put out that album and I needed to not explain that album because another thing about that album was I knew if I did an interview about it, none of it would be about music.

And this entire, like, lover phase of my life, there's been no distraction from the music.

Because you're in a place where you're actually telling a very personal story or telling something so personal to you that someone else's opinion, be it brilliant or otherwise, could only cloud that really.

Yeah, and I thankfully work with really wonderful collaborators who, you know, Jack is amazing.

Like when I bring in a song that I've written 100%, some producers will not, like nowadays some producers will not produce something that they didn't have a co-write on.

We really haven't figured out a way to compensate the creators and that's something that I'm always going to be very vocal about until I feel like it's fixed.

I definitely want to, when I write a song 100%, I want credit for that.

And I think that's fair.

But I also, when people have these policies where they're like, we won't do this without this, I understand why.

But I love right now, you know, out there, we have amazing creators like Halsey.

Like, Halsey's an amazing writer and she speaks up for what she cares about.

And she's very vocal about things.

And we have these very fierce women out there.

It's amazing time.

It's so good.

We were just talking about the internet back there in some of our favorite moments.

You may walk away from that world, but you're able to tap in and use it whenever you want and you do it very effectively.

Are you into it?

The internet?

The only thing I really read every day is political news.

Oddly, there are actual inflections of how I feel politically on this record, more so than ever before.

Like, you know, you need to calm down is...

The man?

Yeah, the man.

There's a song called Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince.

See, I didn't pick it up on that one.

definitely all about politics.

You've got these these songs that definitely welcome people into your world and yet you're able to keep yourself distant from that scrutiny.

How do you do that?

I think after a while you just realize that it's part of the job.

You know there's a lot of things that I tell myself when I'm kind of panicking and one of the things that I tell myself is like this is part of it.

This is normal.

When was it hardest?

When was it toughest for you?

This has happened several times so I can't like you know when I was like 23 and people were just like kind of reducing me to like kind of making slideshows of like my dating life and putting people in there that I'd sat next to at a party once and deciding that my songwriting was like a trick rather than a skill and a craft kind of it's it's a way to take a woman who's doing her job and succeeding at doing her job and making things and it's it's in a way it's it's figuring out how to completely minimize that skill by taking something that everyone you know in their darkest darkest moments loves to do which is to slut shame and so now when I see this happening I can see a headline about a young artist about a young female artist about like another breakup and it makes it spend it sends me into a takes you back there to a degree it sends me into a real sad place because I don't want that to keep happening and I don't think people understand how easy it is to infer that someone who's a female artist or a female in our industry is somehow doing something wrong by wanting love wanting money wanting success women are not allowed to want those things the way that men are allowed to want them do you Do you still have blindsides?

Do you still have things that catch you off guard?

Things that kind of surprise you that you're not prepared for?

You know, every step of my career, there's been, you know, people questioning whether I deserve to be there.

So I feel like my whole career up until very recently was spent trying to prove myself to those people.

I'm trying to prove that I belong here, that I'm going to work hard enough, that I'm going to make music that's good enough to belong here.

And you know, I've had people standing up and saying, you don't deserve to be here either very loudly or in headlines or comments or whatever.

But you know, that's part of life.

New adventures.

Cats.

Yes.

Yes.

I'm so happy I got to do this.

I really wanted to work with Tom Hooper.

I know that he records live and he films and records your vocals live.

such an interesting thing to me and I wanted to see him work.

I had actually done screen tests for Les Mis and had met him through that process like 2012.

Really?

Yeah.

You went for it?

Yeah.

I didn't get it.

Do people know that?

Is that out there?

I mean, I think so, but it was such an amazing experience just doing the screen test and I was obviously like, I'm not going to get this.

And so basically when I was approached This time it was a straight up offer.

And then I started going in for rehearsals and they have this behavioral studies class called cat school that I was okay and that's where we pause I need to just spend a little time in behavioral studies for cats so basically you go in you you watch these videos of cats you watch them walking you watch them sensing things you learn facts about them anatomically biologically how How do they sense things?

How do they like, what's their gaze like?

What's their, what's their like, it's amazing.

Have you ever written a song from someone's point of view and played it to them and it's been too close to the bone?

You know, I remember I wrote a song called 15 for my friend Abigail, who is still just my best friend.

And, you know, she's been, God, she's gone through a lot of like changes in my life and changes in her life.

And we just still are like this.

And she was my, you know, sitting next to me in freshman year and we became best friends.

And a few years later, I wrote a song called 15 that was about, you know, not just my life and journey at that age, but also hers.

And I had to, you know, that was a situation where I played it for her.

And I was like, this is just for you.

And it's never going to see the light of day if you don't want it to.

And she was like, no, you need to put this out.

What do you love most about your friends?

us the one trait that you really look to.

You know, I now like see resilience as like a major quality in friendship.

Like when your stock is down, if they're still wanting to hang out, that's like, and I know who those people are now.

It's really fun to know that.

Selena is one of those people.

She is.

And by the time we've started to put this out, there'll be music.

It's just, I'm so proud of her.

She's been through so much.

I've watched so much happen in her life.

I am 100% convinced this is the best thing she's done so far.

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