Grammy-nominated artist Charli XCX has pulled back the curtain on her high-profile career, admitting she finds aspects of being a pop star genuinely "embarrassing" despite the glamorous perks that come with fame.
The Paradox of Pop Stardom
The British singer, whose real name is Charlotte Aitchison, opened up about her complex feelings toward celebrity life in a revealing Substack post published in November 2025. The 33-year-old musician, fresh from the massive success of her dance album Brat that dominated pop culture throughout summer 2024, described the profession as having inevitable "pros and cons."
While acknowledging the lavish benefits—including designer gifts, extraordinary experiences, and rubbing shoulders with fascinating people—Charli confessed that a significant downside involves what she calls the "stupidity" of it all. "You get to feel special, but you also have to at points feel embarrassed by how stupid the whole thing is," she wrote candidly.
Fame's Double-Edged Sword
Charli, who has become synonymous with a party girl image over the past year—often photographed smoking cigarettes during wild nights out with famous friends—delved into the surreal nature of how society treats artists. She described the experience of standing on stage and "feeling like a God," bringing audiences to tears of happiness as her music soundtracks their lives, and travelling the world without ever worrying about booking arrangements.
The Brit Award winner with two number-one records and nine million Instagram followers shared specific privileges of her position, including hearing groundbreaking music months before public release. She recalled one memorable moment: "the time Addison played me Diet Pepsi for the first time while driving around New York after dinner at Casino springs to mind."
She also values the interconnected community among artists, where she can "help out your other pop star friends by providing an opinion or lending an ear" regarding their work. The dedication of her fans makes her feel they'll "be there for you until the end of time, even though in reality they won't."
Confronting Public Perception
Charli addressed how the public often perceives female artists in particular, noting that some people seem "simply determined to prove that [she] is stupid." She articulated how women in the spotlight tend to be categorized in binary ways that can quickly turn negative.
"At the end of the day the consumer gets to decide whether a pop star is a symbol of sex, or anarchy or intelligence or whatever else they wish to see," she explained. When people reject general consensus, she observed, positive perceptions can flip into their opposites: "Instead of 'she's a sex symbol' it becomes 'she's a w***e'. Instead of 'she's anarchic' it's 'she's a f***ing drug addict'. Instead of 'she's intelligent' it's 'she's pretentious and said a whole load of nothing.'"
The singer mused about why success triggers such anger in some people, suggesting society remains "brainwashed" by patriarchal structures. "We are still trained to hate women, to hate ourselves and to be angry at women if they step out of the neat little box that public perception has put them in," she wrote.
For Charli, that box is "the party girl who smokes cigs, does coke, loves the colour green and has the capacity for nothing else." While accepting this simplified public persona as "part of the deal," she firmly rejected being seen as "a silly little idiot."
Consistent Voice on Female Artistry
This isn't the first time Charli has spoken frankly about navigating the music industry as a woman. Back in 2015, when she was just 22, she told Sunday Style magazine: "Being a b***h is the best," while acknowledging that becoming a role model was never her aim, even if some people looked up to her.
By October 2025, she'd refined her perspective, telling E! that her honesty about imperfection defines her authenticity: "It's the combination of talking about those things whilst also embracing them and really struggling with them is what makes me whole. And I think that it makes me honest."
The Von Dutch singer, whose lyrics frequently reference sex, alcohol, and drugs while championing female friendship and self-expression, acknowledged that her candid nature sometimes backfires: "I have a big mouth, and I say s**t, and sometimes it gets me into trouble."
Throughout her career, Charli XCX has maintained this uncompromising approach to her art and public persona, consistently challenging expectations of what a female pop star should be while remaining transparent about the complexities and occasional absurdities of life in the spotlight.
