Post by Admin on Mar 5, 2021 4:20:24 GMT
Days away from the song’s release, she’s aware that the new music direction may be a bit of a shock to her fans; she got firsthand experience when she posted a picture of her new look, shaved head and all, on TikTok. Immediately, her comments were flooded with people asking, essentially, “Is Grace OK???” “I am very smart and I usually know what things are going to make people talk or grasp attention, but that I didn’t expect in the slightest,” she says. “I realized the world is so much more sexist than I thought. People jump to mad conclusions for a woman having short hair, like ‘[she’s having a] mental breakdown or on drugs.’ What does that say about us?” While she was taken aback by the response, she wasn’t mad. If anything, it just lit the fire that much more. “It exhilarated me,” she says. “Lately, I don’t know what’s going on in my brain or what happened to me, but all of a sudden, I like to make people uncomfortable, and I want people to ask themselves why they’re uncomfortable with whatever I’m doing.
“I actually think that’s why I really like punk music; they’re doing things to make people uncomfortable,” she continues. “I want this whole project to just be about just completely unapologetic self-expression. If you’re uncomfortable, screw you. That’s your own sh*t to work through.”
To reiterate: This is no “Disney girl gone bad” or “starlet gone off the rails” tabloid moment. This is simply a young woman — who’s happened to have been in the spotlight for the past few years — growing up and into who she is. “Physically, I feel like I’m being more honest and myself than ever,” she says. “That’s coming out in my fashion and how I give interviews, but most importantly, my music. I don’t think anything was holding me back before; I think I was just simply young.” Lately, she’s been reflecting on what it means to have to “present yourself,” especially as a female in the public eye. “I was raised to present yourself ‘well’. That was such an ingrained value that one day I was just like, ‘That doesn’t mean sh*t.’ I haven’t looked back since.” Presenting yourself as your most honest self, she realized, is “h*lla more respectable.”
“These are the things that I want to bring up and talk about,” she continues. “Things like ‘respecting young women in the public eye’ — it’s like, what does that respect really mean? What are we really respecting? Core values? Core values shouldn’t be about putting on a costume to please the public eye. That’s a terrible core value. It should be about honesty and living your truest life in happiness and being a good person and saying good messages and speaking up for what you believe in.” With this new music, she feels like she’s doing that, and in turn, has more control over her art than ever — “because I’ve taken the control,” she clarifies. “I knew how special this was, especially with the recent buzz about me, negative or positive, whatever. I don’t care. It’s a special project. I really did not want it to go wrong.” At this point, she’s ready for it to be out in the world, critics be damned. “New and fresh comes with negativity and positivity,” she says. “I’ll take that bullet. I will gladly sacrifice that.”