Charli XCX Is Logging Off — and Opening Up About Why

She built her identity on being relentlessly, defiantly online — but right now, Charli XCX is logging off. And the reason is more serious than anyone might have expected.

In a raw, unguarded cover interview with Rolling Stone, the British pop star has admitted she is currently in the worst mental health crisis of her life, describing her emotions as "very, very volatile" as she prepares to release her sixth studio album, Music, Fashion, Film, on 24 July.

The confession is striking from an artist who has, perhaps more than almost anyone in her generation, thrived on the chaos and momentum of internet culture. Charli, 33, built the phenomenon of Brat — her Mercury Prize-nominated 2024 album — largely through social media energy and a devoted, hyper-engaged fanbase. Now, she says, the noise has become genuinely overwhelming.

"The discourse is loud, and sometimes that can be very overwhelming," she told the magazine. "I have actually been a lot more offline. I don't really look as much anymore. It's just better for my brain."

She added that the Rolling Stone profile would likely be "my last long-form interview with a journalist for a minute" — a striking pull-back for one of pop's most visible figures.

Charli revealed she has been leaning on an unexpected confidant during this difficult period: Matty Healy, frontman of The 1975, who is also a close friend of her husband, the band's drummer George Daniel. She said Healy had been "helpful in his way" as she navigated the emotional turbulence of recent months.

It is a glimpse into a support network that spans some of British music's most high-profile names — and a reminder that behind the carefully constructed artistic persona, the pressures of life at the very top of the industry are very real.

Beyond the personal revelations, Charli also used the interview to address one of the more peculiar controversies to have surrounded her new era: the persistent and, by her account, entirely unfounded suggestion that Music, Fashion, Film is a rock album.

The confusion began when British Vogue published lyrics from the lead single — also called 'Rock Music' — ahead of its release, with the magazine framing her new project as a "rock reinvention". The single itself features gritty, guitar-led production, and when it finally dropped, listeners were divided. Even Madonna appeared to wade in, captioning an Instagram post: "If your dance floor feels dead/ Maybe you're playing the wrong music" — a pointed reference to the song's chorus.

Charli is having none of it. "Obviously, I know that there's been a lot of conversation around me making a rock album, which is something I never said," she told Rolling Stone. She later explained on Instagram that the song's title was an inside joke from the studio, and clarified in the interview that the lyric about the dancefloor being dead was personal rather than prescriptive — a reflection of her complicated feelings about Brat and the enormous cultural moment it created.

She also addressed the album's cover, which features composer John Cale, fashion designer Marc Jacobs and director Martin Scorsese — three figures she says she has genuine personal connections with, having collaborated with Cale on the Wuthering Heights soundtrack and long championed the Velvet Underground.

Despite everything, Charli is not retreating from the stage. She is set to headline Reading & Leeds Festival in August — her debut at the top of that bill — sharing the honours with Fontaines D.C., Raye, Florence + The Machine, Dave and Chase & Status. It will be one of the biggest live moments of her career.

Two tracks from Music, Fashion, Film are already out: the lead single 'Rock Music' and the edgier 'SS26'. The album lands on 24 July.

For a broader look at the artists shaping British music right now, visit our music section.