Charli XCX reflects on her friendship with SOPHIE: "I’m sad for myself that I didn’t experience all this person had to offer"

Despite having to remain tight-lipped about her forthcoming sixth studio album – the follow up to 2022's CRASH – Charli XCX shares that she is moving away from making a "commercially viable" album, and is instead setting out to be more "confrontational and aggressive". Amidst all of this, she does reveal that the album is her most vulnerable to date.

One song in particular explores the grief that she experienced by the premature death of SOPHIE in 2021, who she worked with on the 2016 EP, Vroom Vroom. At the time she shared a tribute to her, writing: It’s really hard for me to sum up the special connection I felt with such an amazing person who completely changed my life... She taught me so much about myself without even realising. I wish I had told her more how special she was, not just her music, but her as a person."

Shortly after paying tribute, Charli XCX shared a petition calling for NASA to rename the planet TOI-1338 b after SOPHIE due to the resemblance between the planet discovered in the Summer of 2019 by Wolf Cukier, with the setting pictured on the cover of SOPHIE's album, Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides. Whilst this never happened, an asteroid 1980 RE1, discovered by Antonín Mrkos at the Kleť Observatory in the Czech Republic, was given the permanent name of Sophiexeon.

“I didn’t feel like I was magical enough for this unbelievably magic person.… I don’t have the opportunity to experience that anymore, because she’s gone. I feel ashamed for being a coward. I’m sad for myself that I didn’t experience all this person had to offer.” - Charli

— CHARLI XCX UPDATES (@FckyeahCharli) February 19, 2024

Charli XCX has revealed that one song on the album takes a look at the shame she felt when reflecting on her relationship with SOPHIE.

​“There was a lot of distance between us because I was in awe of her and wanted to impress her. She believed in me in ways that I didn’t believe [in] myself. But I felt like I would never be interesting enough to operate in her world outside of the studio, which was the safe space where we could connect and bond over music," she explained. ​“I didn’t feel like I was magical enough for this unbelievably magic person. And that makes me ashamed now I don’t have the opportunity to experience that anymore, because she’s gone. I feel ashamed for being a coward. It’s hard to write about. I’m sad for myself that I didn’t experience all this person had to offer.”

Taking in the confidence she's built over the years, she gives thought to being seen as a role model: ​“I get tired of behaving in a way that people expect me, or expect pop stars, to behave. I’m not a role model – and I never did this because I wanted to be. I understand it comes with the territory. I am a role model for a very flawed, genuinely real, non-perfect person. And that’s all I would ever want to be," she concludes.