- Joined
- Jun 25, 2018
Grimes / Claire Elise Boucher / c
"Grimes started producing music when she had to learn the program Logic for her neuroscience class. Shortly thereafter she had a viral myspace page, which allowed her to start booking shows and focus full-time on music. She lived in a crack den In Montreal with no heat (where she got frostbite twice and her neighbor was bludgeoned to death in the hallway), playing raves until her 2012 breakout, Visions, which was recorded during a 2 week speed binge wherein she did not leave her bedroom. Upon the success of this album, Grimes attempted to enter society as a regular human, which has clearly not gone super well but has nonetheless been entertaining. She’s since become an award winning music video director as well as music composer, producer, engineer and singer-songwriter. She’s toured globally to sold out crowds, headlined festivals, and is now moving into the space of corporate surrealism. She recently had experimental eye surgery only available to the upper class. She put out her final earth album in 2020."
Origins
Grimes, born Claire Elise Boucher – later changing her name to c (in reference to the speed of light) – is a Canadian born musician originating from Vancouver, BC via Montreal, QB. Claire is the only daughter of five children, two biological brothers and the other two step-brothers from her mother's subsequent relationship after divorcing Claire's father when she was 12. Her mother Sandy Garossino is a former crown prosecutor and current arts advocate and journalist, her father Maurice Boucher is a former investment banker and current executive chairman at Renaissance Biotech."Grimes started producing music when she had to learn the program Logic for her neuroscience class. Shortly thereafter she had a viral myspace page, which allowed her to start booking shows and focus full-time on music. She lived in a crack den In Montreal with no heat (where she got frostbite twice and her neighbor was bludgeoned to death in the hallway), playing raves until her 2012 breakout, Visions, which was recorded during a 2 week speed binge wherein she did not leave her bedroom. Upon the success of this album, Grimes attempted to enter society as a regular human, which has clearly not gone super well but has nonetheless been entertaining. She’s since become an award winning music video director as well as music composer, producer, engineer and singer-songwriter. She’s toured globally to sold out crowds, headlined festivals, and is now moving into the space of corporate surrealism. She recently had experimental eye surgery only available to the upper class. She put out her final earth album in 2020."
Origins
Claire was raised as Roman Catholic which became a root issue for Claire growing up, claiming to have grown up with an "intense fear and fascination with God and religion" and attended Catholic school, wherein she was an outsider, obviously. Claiming at one point in the Seventh grade to be practicing wicca, however, she says that she stopped doing witchcraft after casting a spell that resulted in a "rosary crumbled in [her] hands," which she found "really scary."
Later in high school as senior, Claire's friend group was being expelled due to the school wanting to "bring the GPA up" after a change in faculty. As a result of the expulsions she claims "a lot of those people actually ended up dying from drug-related causes or mental health-related causes and this is one of the big traumas of [her] life." But what does this have to do with anything you ask? rather infamously, Claire was known for her senior quote. Before she gave context to this quote she was seen as a #CommunistQueen but as we know, this changes.
While in high school, Claire begins experimenting with drugs, beginning with LSD at 13 before progressing to other substances. To pay for these she claims to have done homework for Taiwanese loan sharks.
After graduating, Claire relocates to Montreal to attend McGill University, originally planning to double major in neuroscience and Russian before being expelled in 2011 for frequently skipping class to make music and perform. During this time Claire claims to have been living in a rundown crack-den with no heat, etc. but a few people who claimed to have known Claire during her stint in uni allege that her parents owned the dwelling she was in and that Claire was the landlord of it.
Bonus Fun: A documentary made by former collaborator Emily Kai Bock, who helped direct the music video for one of her breakout singles, "Oblivion", helps to provide some context to Claire's career and fascination with space – an interesting foreshadowing of her future some decade later.
Bonus Bonus Fun: In 2009 at 21, Claire and a friend attempted to set off down the Mississippi in a self made house boat they named "Velvet Glove Cast in Iron" in which they loaded 20 pounds of potatoes, a bunch of live chickens and a sewing machine. They only made it a few miles downstream before their franken-boat started having mechanical issues, stopping to tie it to a tree in the hopes of managing to repair the damn thing. Some days later a park officer paid them a visit telling them they couldn't stay tied to the tree and had to gather actual supplies like life jackets which they didn't already have on board, however, they failed to tell the officer about the boat's motor failure. Somehow, they managed to set off floating freely further down the river, hitting rocks and wading away from signage using sticks, arriving at an island near the Lowry Bridge. Having found a safe haven, they set up camp and made plans to repair the motor within a week. However, their peace was short lived as they were soon paid a visit by water patrol who told the couple they had to shift (again) as the Lowry Bridge was due to be demolished. Their franken-boat was towed to another location, where the same park officer from their tree incident spotted them and had enough of their shit, ordering the city to tow their franken-boat to impound and have animal control seize their chickens.
Claire Boucher and William Gratz had their sights set on the southern reaches of the Mississippi River when they packed their chickens, a sewing machine and 20 pounds of potatoes into a houseboat they crafted from scratch.
Calling themselves Veruschka and Zelda Xox, river names worthy of the grand adventure they envisioned, the young couple pushed off from the riverbank in north Minneapolis the first week of June.
But their journey ended only a few miles downstream after engine trouble and a three-week tangle with the cops. The Minneapolis park police trailed them from river bank to river bank, as Boucher and Gratz tried to get their boat in working order, often tying up to trees and hopping ashore to gather supplies from Craigslist and hardware stores.
Now their vessel, the "Velvet Glove Cast in Iron," is marooned in the Minneapolis impound lot. The chickens were seized by animal control, and Boucher, 21, and Gratz, 23, have abandoned their hope of reliving the enduring tradition of river lore.
"Even though it's sad this happened, it's still an adventure," Boucher said.
The trouble began, as it often does, with a sudden twist of fate and an encounter with the law.
Boucher, who's from Vancouver, B.C., and Gratz, from Tennessee, met at school in Montreal. The idea for the river journey was hatched last fall. After months of Internet research, they made the 25-hour trip to Bemidji, Minn., where a friend allowed them to build the boat on his property. For more than a month, they toiled over the engineering of the 20-foot boat to make sure it floated. They installed accordion folding doors, glass windows, pink shutters and painted murals in black, white and red paint of fantastical creatures on the sides. Strangers gave them bikes, a mattress and the sewing machine (powered by on-board batteries). They got a copy of Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," which neither of them had read.
"I always wanted to live on a boat," Boucher said. "We both wanted to go south and live on it when we got to New Orleans."
They hauled it to north Minneapolis and shoved off from land the first week of June. Moments later, their engine began to sputter and gurgle. They made it to the other side of the river and tied the boat to a tree, determined to repair the motor and be on their way again in a few days.
They were awakened one morning by Minneapolis park police officer Rob Mooney tapping the side of their boat with a stick. Mooney gave them until the next Tuesday to gather life jackets, paddles and other supplies, despite a Minneapolis park ordinance forbidding boats from tying up to any tree, shrub or post in a park without a permit. The officer said the couple never told him about their engine trouble.
"I love the idea of the Tom Sawyer adventure," Mooney said. "The problem is it's not 1883. You can't do that anymore. You have to follow the rules."
When Mooney returned a week later and saw Boucher and Gratz's chickens grazing and signs of camping, they were given citations for camping and alcohol consumption in the park and told to move along.
"We were just trying to get our act together so we could get out of the Twin Cities," Gratz said. "We didn't want to float down the river out of control."
The next leg of their journey was much more precarious. After entering the channel without a working motor, they began to drift toward rocks jutting out of the water. Surrounded by caution signs, they frantically pushed away from the danger using sticks. They reached an island north of the Lowry Bridge.
The island seemed to be a haven for canoes and other boats, they said, so they set up camp and made plans to resume their search for a working motor over the next week. Swimming was the only way to reach the river bank, so several times a day they would jump in the water and bring back tools wrapped in plastic bags.
Fate of the journey uncertain
The tranquility of the island didn't last long. This time, the Hennepin County Sheriff Office's water patrol showed up and told all of the boaters to leave by that evening in advance of the Lowry Bridge demolition on Sunday. Another boat towed the Velvet Glove Cast in Iron to Boom Island, where the final showdown would take place.
Mooney said when he spotted the houseboat there, he'd had enough.
"I personally allowed them for a couple weeks to try to solve the problem on their own," he said. "It was clear that they couldn't get it done."
The city loaded the houseboat onto a flatbed trailer and took it away.
On Thursday, Boucher and Gratz took a city bus to the impound lot to retrieve whatever they could carry from the boat. They searched for a jar of wild rice so they could make dinner for the strangers who are letting the couple stay with them for a few nights.
The couple say they can't afford to fix the minor damage from the towing or have the boat hauled back to the river. They're planning to continue their trip south by bus. The chickens can't be reclaimed without a Minneapolis address and permit, so they will be sent to a chicken farm. Its fate uncertain, the Velvet Glove Cast in Iron rests next to burned-up and smashed car carcasses.
Boucher and Gratz still have a few people rooting for them.
"I would love for them to go," Mooney said. "I hope they do it."
Calling themselves Veruschka and Zelda Xox, river names worthy of the grand adventure they envisioned, the young couple pushed off from the riverbank in north Minneapolis the first week of June.
But their journey ended only a few miles downstream after engine trouble and a three-week tangle with the cops. The Minneapolis park police trailed them from river bank to river bank, as Boucher and Gratz tried to get their boat in working order, often tying up to trees and hopping ashore to gather supplies from Craigslist and hardware stores.
Now their vessel, the "Velvet Glove Cast in Iron," is marooned in the Minneapolis impound lot. The chickens were seized by animal control, and Boucher, 21, and Gratz, 23, have abandoned their hope of reliving the enduring tradition of river lore.
"Even though it's sad this happened, it's still an adventure," Boucher said.
The trouble began, as it often does, with a sudden twist of fate and an encounter with the law.
Boucher, who's from Vancouver, B.C., and Gratz, from Tennessee, met at school in Montreal. The idea for the river journey was hatched last fall. After months of Internet research, they made the 25-hour trip to Bemidji, Minn., where a friend allowed them to build the boat on his property. For more than a month, they toiled over the engineering of the 20-foot boat to make sure it floated. They installed accordion folding doors, glass windows, pink shutters and painted murals in black, white and red paint of fantastical creatures on the sides. Strangers gave them bikes, a mattress and the sewing machine (powered by on-board batteries). They got a copy of Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," which neither of them had read.
"I always wanted to live on a boat," Boucher said. "We both wanted to go south and live on it when we got to New Orleans."
They hauled it to north Minneapolis and shoved off from land the first week of June. Moments later, their engine began to sputter and gurgle. They made it to the other side of the river and tied the boat to a tree, determined to repair the motor and be on their way again in a few days.
They were awakened one morning by Minneapolis park police officer Rob Mooney tapping the side of their boat with a stick. Mooney gave them until the next Tuesday to gather life jackets, paddles and other supplies, despite a Minneapolis park ordinance forbidding boats from tying up to any tree, shrub or post in a park without a permit. The officer said the couple never told him about their engine trouble.
"I love the idea of the Tom Sawyer adventure," Mooney said. "The problem is it's not 1883. You can't do that anymore. You have to follow the rules."
When Mooney returned a week later and saw Boucher and Gratz's chickens grazing and signs of camping, they were given citations for camping and alcohol consumption in the park and told to move along.
"We were just trying to get our act together so we could get out of the Twin Cities," Gratz said. "We didn't want to float down the river out of control."
The next leg of their journey was much more precarious. After entering the channel without a working motor, they began to drift toward rocks jutting out of the water. Surrounded by caution signs, they frantically pushed away from the danger using sticks. They reached an island north of the Lowry Bridge.
The island seemed to be a haven for canoes and other boats, they said, so they set up camp and made plans to resume their search for a working motor over the next week. Swimming was the only way to reach the river bank, so several times a day they would jump in the water and bring back tools wrapped in plastic bags.
Fate of the journey uncertain
The tranquility of the island didn't last long. This time, the Hennepin County Sheriff Office's water patrol showed up and told all of the boaters to leave by that evening in advance of the Lowry Bridge demolition on Sunday. Another boat towed the Velvet Glove Cast in Iron to Boom Island, where the final showdown would take place.
Mooney said when he spotted the houseboat there, he'd had enough.
"I personally allowed them for a couple weeks to try to solve the problem on their own," he said. "It was clear that they couldn't get it done."
The city loaded the houseboat onto a flatbed trailer and took it away.
On Thursday, Boucher and Gratz took a city bus to the impound lot to retrieve whatever they could carry from the boat. They searched for a jar of wild rice so they could make dinner for the strangers who are letting the couple stay with them for a few nights.
The couple say they can't afford to fix the minor damage from the towing or have the boat hauled back to the river. They're planning to continue their trip south by bus. The chickens can't be reclaimed without a Minneapolis address and permit, so they will be sent to a chicken farm. Its fate uncertain, the Velvet Glove Cast in Iron rests next to burned-up and smashed car carcasses.
Boucher and Gratz still have a few people rooting for them.
"I would love for them to go," Mooney said. "I hope they do it."
In a 2022 interview for Vanity Fair, Claire's younger brother and collaborator Mac stated
Pre-Musk history
Claire began releasing music on Myspace in 2007 and derived her stage name by selecting "grime" as her works genre – without knowing what grime music was (it's a genre of hip-hop originating in the UK, for the record.) Tinkering around in the years between then and her debut, she would appear on tracks by then boyfriend Devon Welsh and future Arbutus label mate Sean Nicholas Savage doing backing vocals and performing at Montreal warehouse space La Brique. She soon signed to Montreal-based label Arbutus and released her debut album Geidi Primes (based on the 1965 science fiction novel Dune – an obsession of which she still has today) in January of 2010 and ending that year with her second album, Halfaxa. In 2011, she released Darkbloom, a split EP with fellow Montreal musician d'Eon – picking up a bit of hype from the bustling blogosphere for the track Vanessa – and touring as an opener for Swedish musician Lykke Li for her American tour. Everything was relatively smooth sailing until the release of her breakout third album, 2012's Visions.
2012
Now, Visions has a rather controversial history. The story was – at the time, in Claire's words, recorded within THREE weeks in GarageBand – the pre-installed basic music production software included as standard with pretty much every Apple product – while completely isolated, in a blacked out room on amphetamines.
Having grown disgruntled with the relatively short deadline for the album to be submitted, Claire began work on Visions in the August of 2011. Recording the album in a self proclaimed "psychotic pace" Claire stopped sleeping and eating for 9 days and begun using amphetamines to rush along and meet her deadline. However over the last few years Claire has came forward to say that well, she did eat and had people visiting her while recording the album.
In a 2014 article it was revealed that she had intentionally tried to remove details and references to drug use in her creation of music from her Wikipedia page, calling those who added them in "assholes." She made the below statements about this in an interview, also discussing it in a Tumblr post where she said she doesn’t want drugs “to be part of my narrative.”
Her initial heavy drug use during the pre-Visions period had been brought upon by the death of a myriad of friends, largely from opiate overdoses and one of which who had committed suicide. She states that having a music career never seemed like a viable option to her until she started hanging out at La Brique's predecessor Lab Synthèse, where she was encouraged to produce her own tracks by her manager and Arbutus label creator, Sebastian Cowan. When Lab Synthèse's co-founder committed suicide in 2008, she decided that she "owed" her music career to him.
Shortly after the release of Visions, Claire released the video for her track "Oblivion" in March of 2012. The video was shot at Montreal's Olympic Stadium and at McGill University's Molson Stadium during a football game and supercross event with a predominantly male crowd. In it, she's shown among shirtless frat boys and in a men's locker room surrounded by weightlifting athletes. She's spoke about the meaning of the track and video, stating: "Art gives me an outlet where I can be aggressive in a world where I usually can't be, and part of it was asserting this abstract female power in these male-dominated arenas—the video is somewhat about objectifying men. Not in a disrespectful way, though." In an interview she revealed that the song is about "going into this masculine world that is associated with sexual assault, but presented as something really welcoming and nice. The song's sort of about being—I was assaulted and I had a really hard time engaging in any types of relationship with men, because I was just so terrified of men for a while."
A few years later in 2015 she stated that she "hates" the song.
2013
In early 2013, Claire cracked it with the Tumblr community after receiving backlash over a list she posted of her favorite songs of 2012, while discussing issues related to sexism, racism and feminism.
With her Grimes project, Claire Boucher has always treaded the line between a mainstream pop sound and her experimental roots. Early this morning, she posted a thoughtful Tumblr post in defense of the former, responding to criticism of her favorite songs of 2012 list, which included Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Carly Rae Jepsen, Lana Del Rey and "Gangnam Style" from Korean pop star PSY. ("People just hated on it," she wrote.)
In her post, Boucher touched upon her overarching issues with the music industry-- how musicians will often succeed based on good connections alone, how women are oppressed and "it's OK to make rape threats but it's not OK to say you're a feminist." She said she's tired of people calling her "ignorant" for liking pop and hip hop and noted that it's wrong to hate or devalue art on the grounds that it is successful.
Most compelling, though, were Boucher's thoughts on how the success of artists like Beyoncé and PSY can have positive social implications.
On Beyoncé:
Regarding PSY, she also reflected on personal experiences growing up around racism, and how a diverse popular music culture can combat that:
She concluded with thoughts on how Mariah Carey changed her life:
In her post, Boucher touched upon her overarching issues with the music industry-- how musicians will often succeed based on good connections alone, how women are oppressed and "it's OK to make rape threats but it's not OK to say you're a feminist." She said she's tired of people calling her "ignorant" for liking pop and hip hop and noted that it's wrong to hate or devalue art on the grounds that it is successful.
Most compelling, though, were Boucher's thoughts on how the success of artists like Beyoncé and PSY can have positive social implications.
On Beyoncé:
Regarding PSY, she also reflected on personal experiences growing up around racism, and how a diverse popular music culture can combat that:
She concluded with thoughts on how Mariah Carey changed her life:
Below was her last post before deactivating.
She later remade her blog but stayed quiet until later in March where she decided to make a statement after concern was raised over her or engaging in cultural appropriation by repeatedly wearing a bindi in photoshoots and during performances. She requested that the apology not "turn into news or anything" and that it was "not an 'official statement.'"
In the following April, she soon posted something that, well, has not aged very well in the grand scheme of things.
i dont want my words to be taken out of context
i dont want to be infantilized because i refuse to be sexualized
i dont want to be molested at shows or on the street by people who perceive me as an object that exists for their personal satisfaction
i dont want to live in a world where im gonna have to start employing body guards because this kind of behavior is so commonplace and accepted and I’m pissed that when I express concern over my own safety it’s often ignored until people see firsthand what happens and then they apologize for not taking me seriously after the fact…
I’m tired of men who aren’t professional or even accomplished musicians continually offering to ‘help me out’ (without being asked), as if i did this by accident and i’m gonna flounder without them. or as if the fact that I’m a woman makes me incapable of using technology. I have never seen this kind of thing happen to any of my male peers
I’m tired of the weird insistence that i need a band or i need to work with outside producers (and I’m eternally grateful to the people who don’t do this)
im tired of being considered vapid for liking pop music or caring about fashion as if these things inherently lack substance or as if the things i enjoy somehow make me a lesser person
im tired of being congratulated for being thin because i can more easily fit into sample sizes from the runway
im tired of people i love betraying me so they can get credit or money
I’m sad that it’s uncool or offensive to talk about environmental or human rights issues
I’m tired of creeps on message boards discussing whether or not they’d “fuck” me
I’m tired of people harassing my dancers and treating them like they aren’t human beings
I’m sad that my desire to be treated as an equal and as a human being is interpreted as hatred of men, rather than a request to be included and respected (I have four brothers and many male best friends and a dad and i promise i do not hate men at all, nor do i believe that all men are sexist or that all men behave in the ways described above)
im tired of being referred to as ‘cute,’ as a ‘waif’ etc., even when the author, fan, friend, family member etc. is being positive
(fyi)
waif |wāf|
noun
1 a homeless and helpless person, esp. a neglected or abandoned child: she is foster-mother to various waifs and strays .
• an abandoned pet animal.
cute |kyo͞ot|
adjective
1 attractive in a pretty or endearing way: a cute kitten.
• informal sexually attractive.
I’m tired of people assuming that just because something happens regularly it’s ok
——————————————————
i have so much love for everyone who has been cool and amazing. I have the best job in the world but I’m done with being passive about any kind of status quo that allows anyone to suffer or to be disrespected
Grimes world tour is officially over, the visions album cycle is officially over, and I’m now taking the time to overhaul everything and make it better
much love to every fan - stuff can be lame sometimes but its really cool to have this support <3
i dont want to be infantilized because i refuse to be sexualized
i dont want to be molested at shows or on the street by people who perceive me as an object that exists for their personal satisfaction
i dont want to live in a world where im gonna have to start employing body guards because this kind of behavior is so commonplace and accepted and I’m pissed that when I express concern over my own safety it’s often ignored until people see firsthand what happens and then they apologize for not taking me seriously after the fact…
I’m tired of men who aren’t professional or even accomplished musicians continually offering to ‘help me out’ (without being asked), as if i did this by accident and i’m gonna flounder without them. or as if the fact that I’m a woman makes me incapable of using technology. I have never seen this kind of thing happen to any of my male peers
I’m tired of the weird insistence that i need a band or i need to work with outside producers (and I’m eternally grateful to the people who don’t do this)
im tired of being considered vapid for liking pop music or caring about fashion as if these things inherently lack substance or as if the things i enjoy somehow make me a lesser person
im tired of being congratulated for being thin because i can more easily fit into sample sizes from the runway
im tired of people i love betraying me so they can get credit or money
I’m sad that it’s uncool or offensive to talk about environmental or human rights issues
I’m tired of creeps on message boards discussing whether or not they’d “fuck” me
I’m tired of people harassing my dancers and treating them like they aren’t human beings
I’m sad that my desire to be treated as an equal and as a human being is interpreted as hatred of men, rather than a request to be included and respected (I have four brothers and many male best friends and a dad and i promise i do not hate men at all, nor do i believe that all men are sexist or that all men behave in the ways described above)
im tired of being referred to as ‘cute,’ as a ‘waif’ etc., even when the author, fan, friend, family member etc. is being positive
(fyi)
waif |wāf|
noun
1 a homeless and helpless person, esp. a neglected or abandoned child: she is foster-mother to various waifs and strays .
• an abandoned pet animal.
cute |kyo͞ot|
adjective
1 attractive in a pretty or endearing way: a cute kitten.
• informal sexually attractive.
I’m tired of people assuming that just because something happens regularly it’s ok
——————————————————
i have so much love for everyone who has been cool and amazing. I have the best job in the world but I’m done with being passive about any kind of status quo that allows anyone to suffer or to be disrespected
Grimes world tour is officially over, the visions album cycle is officially over, and I’m now taking the time to overhaul everything and make it better
much love to every fan - stuff can be lame sometimes but its really cool to have this support <3
In October, she defended her choice to book a private November show in Moscow in the wake of Russia’s discriminatory anti-queer laws. She stated on Tumblr “I don’t think that denying and ignoring the gay community in Russia is cool. It doesn’t hurt the government if I refuse to tour there. Just regular people. So I don’t think it’s wrong to be doing this. Refusing to go to Russia would only hurt fans.”
In December, she signed a management deal with rapper Jay-Z's Roc Nation along with musicians Haim, Rihanna, Timbaland and others. The announcement came in the form of her posting a picture throwing up the "Roc diamond" on Tumblr.
2014
Six months after signing to Roc Nation, she revealed that her and BloodPop – who at the time went by the alias Blood Diamonds – wrote a song, Go, for Rihanna, which was turned down (and also received negative reactions from fans and critics once released.) She performed Go for the first time live later in the month at NYC’s Governors Ball festival and eventually released it as a single. Around this time she began working on a concept for a potential album, releasing the songs Entropy featuring Bleachers for Bleachers' front man Jack Antonoff's at-the-time girlfriend Lena Dunham's HBO series 'Girls' and Realiti (which was later released in its demo form and then re-recorded for Art Angels after fan demand), but the "album" was scrapped and eventually morphed into Art Angels. A few months before Art Angels was released, she claimed that she had "never" scrapped an album.
Claire finally stayed quiet for sometime more until August 2014 when was tagged in the ALS Association fundraiser "Ice Bucket Challenge" by producer Richie Hawtin and publicly refused to take part or donate, instead donating to the Malala Fund. She stated on Tumblr that she didn't want to donate to the ALS Association because of their history of testing disease prevention on rodents, worms, and flies.
2016
In 2016 Claire released her most well-known album, the experimental, pop-oriented Art Angels to critical acclaim. But 2016 was of course not without its dramas as in November she recreated the famous political advertisement Daisy (originally supportive of 1964 US President Lyndon B. Johnson) in support of Hillary Clinton, 2016 democratic US presidential candidate. Her recreation of the ad contained the phrases "We must either love each other, or we must die" and "Vote for Secretary Clinton on November 8th. The stakes are too high for you to stay home." She posted the video to Twitter and deleted it quickly after.
In June, while performing the track World Princess part II in New York City, Grimes walked offstage mid-song saying “We just had a really disturbing thing happen to us today, so sorry if my voice is shaking, it’s just kind of a fucked day.” She said the day after on Twitter that she'd “explain what happened once I can safely and legally do so,” later saying it was due to “a serious death threat and we didn’t catch the stalker before the show and i was suffering from health problems making it hard to eat which compounded exhaustion — just an unfortunate series of coincidences.”
Just a Grimey girl in a Musky world
Skipping forward over irrelevant nitpick-y dramas to 2018.
2018
2018 was a very important year for Claire, as it's the year she started dating billionaire cow Elon Musk.
Their relationship and connection by Rococo Basilisk addendum
Soon after going public with Musk at the MET Gala, she removed "anti-imperialist" from her Twitter bio and defended his harmful business practices. Fans pointed out to her that Musk had illegally prevented employee unionization and she referred to the claims "fake news" despite the case being publicly available to view. She tweeted that “he has never prevented them from unionizing... Trust me, I’ve investigated this heavily and even visited factories.” She also claimed to have evidence that the reports were false but never revealed any, adding “I can respect a capitalist when they throw the phuck down on creating cheaper safer public transit, taking humans 2 space, movin the world into clean energy, fightin for ubi etc. Humans w differing views on economics often hang out.” Later on she followed up her comments stating “That said I respect yalls commitment to social justice. We all gotta work to make the world better, I’ll stay on my game too."
In August, Azealia Banks arrived at Elon Musk’s mansion to collaborate with Claire - and in doing so, one of the most unexpected modern pop culture sagas unfolded…
Two months prior in June, Claire and Banks had planned to collaborate, the tweet below being one of the first confirmations of this. Banks was supposed to meet Claire, who was at Musk's home in Los Angeles, to work on music in the subsequent August.
Azealia arrived at the mansion on August 10th, Claire & Musk left shortly after - leaving her alone for the entire weekend. On August 12th, Azealia eventually took to Instagram to share what was happening while she waited for their return.
On August 13th, Azealia took to Instagram again, claiming to know information about Elon from Claire - information which later lead to Azealia being subpoenaed to court as part of an SEC investigation.
In a conversation with a Business Insider reporter, Banks claimed that while she was at Musk’s house she overheard him on the phone, panicked and “scrounging for investors.” She also said “I could run Tesla better than he does,” and added that she thinks Claire and Musk are “so pitiful.”
After the incident, Banks leaked texts between her and Claire onto social media that she sent both during and after the weekend.
In October, she released the song (and later the lyric video for) "We Appreciate Power" featuring HANA, intended to be the first single from her fifth album, Miss Anthropocene, but later removed from the standard version of the album and added to the deluxe version. She stated in an interview that her inspiration for the song was the North Korean state-propaganda musical group, Moranbong Band, and that it's “written from the perspective of a Pro-A.I. Girl Group Propaganda machine who use song, dance, sex and fashion to spread goodwill towards Artificial Intelligence (it’s coming whether you want it or not). Simply by listening to this song, the future General AI overlords will see that you’ve supported their message and be less likely to delete your offspring.” This release was only months after collaborating with K-pop group LOOΠΔ on the track "love4eva" and marked the beginning of the continuous criticism towards her post-Art Angels work. She also filmed a music video for WAP but much like a very large majority of her projects, it has never seen the light of day. However WAP has a complex history which leads us into...
During the same month musician/YouTuber/skinwalker Poppy released her album Am I a Girl? which featured Claire on the track Play Destroy. Claire made it fairly obvious she wasn't really feeling it.
It came out that Poppy had made claims about Grimes "bullying" and "harassing" her during the collaborative process of making the track, stating that she'd felt "kind of bullied into submission by [Claire] and her team of self-proclaimed feminists." Poppy claimed that Claire's choices were getting in the way of the proper release of the song. “We planned the song coming out months ago, and she was preventing it. I got to watch her bully songwriters into signing NDAs and not taking credit for songs that they were a part of," Poppy told Billboard. "She doesn't practice what she preaches. It's really upsetting to work with a female that is very outward about a topic, but behind closed doors, it's the complete opposite. It's actually very disheartening to people that are actually feminists and supporters of other females.”
Claire later responded to Poppy's claims in a post on her Instagram story.
Rumors went around shortly after Grimes unfollowed Poppy on every platform (and began following musician Mars Argo instead) that Grimes' 2018 track featuring HANA, We Appreciate Power, was originally supposed to feature Poppy. A July 2018 interview of Poppy hinted at these claims.
Recently however Claire has randomly drudged up this Poppy drama some 5 years after the fact.
Abusive freak/puppetmaster Titanic Sinclair responded via Instagram story proving that Claire made both him and Poppy sign the NDA.
2019
In March, Grimes announced on Twitter that Miss Anthropocene (initially titled Miss_Antrop0cene) would be her fifth album and follow-up to 2015's Art Angels. The title is a combination of the words "misanthrope" (a person who dislikes humankind and society) and "anthropocene" (the current geological age and period when human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.) The controversial concept for the album has been widely discussed and criticized.
Back in February of 2018, it had been more than two years since she'd released an album. That month, she made and later retracted statements where she claimed to be working on two separate albums, one of which being a “final album for my shit label", 4AD. She tweeted afterwards “Welp no music any time soon after all … music industry is trash.” This was the first of many delays for the album (but definitely not the last time she pulls something like this.)
On March 29th, she announced online that her next album was in the works, would be titled Miss_Anthropocene, and focuses around the concept of "the anthropomorphic goddess of climate change", a sensitive topic to some at the time.
She delved a little deeper into her inspiration for the album in this snippet from an interview - "Miss Anthropocene is a psychedelic space-dwelling demon or beauty queen who “relishes the end of the world”, and is composed of ivory and oil. "I love godly personifications of abstract/horrific concepts (for example, Mars as the Roman god of war) – so I wanted to update the list to include our modern issues. Each song will be a different embodiment of human extinction as depicted through a pop star Demonology... We Appreciate Power introduced the pro-AI-propaganda girl group who embody our potential enslavement/destruction at the hands of Artificial General intelligence." She also added that she wanted to make the issue of climate change into a character and not “just abstract doom” so it is easier to perceive. When asked to describe what the album would sound like overall, it was said to be "a gargantuan, goth-inspired cut, the song swaps the bubblegum pop sheen of Art Angels for something dirty, distorted and pummeling. It’s closer to Marilyn Manson than to anything on Art Angels." She responded to a fan on Instagram saying that the album will be “highly collaborative and most glorious light."
In another interview, she was questioned about the backlash she'd received from for "glorifying" global warming and ignoring the effects that billionaires like her boyfriend, Musk, have on the destruction of the planet. She spoke on it, saying
Referring to the album, she said
In the same interview she detailed plans for a music video she'd like to film for a track on the album.
In October, a demo version of the album leaked, and in the subsequent November, the album leaked nearly three months before the February 21, 2020 release date.
In November, she presented in hologram form playing a character called "Cybergirl" at the announcement event for the Tesla Cybertruck. Referring to the product as "the greatest evolution in vehicular fashion and function" and to Musk as "my creator," she spoke an introductory bit about environmental destruction, stating
Neither her or Musk publicly acknowledged her appearance, nor were any official statements about it made prior to the announcement event.
Bonus Fun: A pap photo of Claire death staring right into the camera, while in a Cybertruck.
2020
Miss Anthropocene finally released, and received rather lukewarmly by fans and critics alike.
However, Pitchfork gave it the coveted Best New Album branding and a score of 8.2 (which is the lowest score an album can get when obtaining the Best New Album label) – but funnily enough, a year and a bit later, Pitchfork released a 'Rescored' article, where they drop the score from 8.2 to a 6.9.
During the weeks shortly before Miss Anthropocene's release, Claire was getting ready to release something else: X Æ A-12.
Claire announced her pregnancy in January 2020 to much (expected) controversy. In the midst of her pregnancy, she did an interview with Harper's BAZAAR where she reveals that she ate nothing but spaghetti for almost two straight years while touring for Art Angels because she hates vegetables, causing her hair to fall out due to nutritional deficiencies and for a doctor to say she was malnourished as a result, and that hot dogs aren't really vegan.
She later gave birth to X on the 4th of May – whether or not his birth was intentionally on Star Wars day is very much up for debate. Musk shares first picture of X with a face tattoo filter on him.
Mere days after X's birth, Claire announced she'd signed with major label Colombia Records, beginning what became another contentious relationship with a label.
A few weeks later, as Musk was involving himself into some drama with the Trumps and red pills, it became clear there may have been some trouble in the waters in the Musk/Grime household.
Claire's mother Sandy tweeted this.
Claire later liked then unliked a tweet made about her mother's comments on Musk, hinting to some problems in the household.
With this in mind, people discover a Reddit thread on r/relationship_advice and speculate that it's about Claire and her shitty relationship with Elon, claiming he's trying to get her to stop speaking to her mom, etc. using a throwaway account to post. Again, it is a completely anon post, take with the most massive grain of salt.
Fast forward over an otherwise quiet 2020 to 2021...
2021
In May, Claire made her appearance along side Musk during his controversial hosting of Saturday Night Live, where she appeared in a sketch as Princess Peach in a courthouse waaaa-ing over Musk's atrocious Wario.
In July, Claire, alongside such big, massive, super relevant names such as will.i.am, Alanis Morissette, Nick Lachey and Rocsi Diaz were revealed as judges on Fox's 'Alter Ego', a singing competition series in which the contestants make the use of motion capture technology to portray themselves as these weird AI-esque "dream avatars" that perform for the judges instead of the contestant physically being on stage like they would for American Idol, The Voice, etc. However, the series was a massive (expected) bomb, with it only lasting a single season before being canceled.
Also during July, Claire previewed the song 100% Tragedy, a song about how Azealia Banks “[tried] to destroy my life.” Azealia responded to Claire's claim saying “Grimes def has some psychosexual obsession with me. I think it’s bitterness cuz she doesn’t have the musical capacity I have.”
Days later, Claire made a cameo appearance in the short film Discord: The Movie, where she previewed yet another song, Shinigami Eyes, and in a related interview announced album six, stating that the albums concept is that of a lesbian AI space opera. Claire attempted to clarify this concept in an Instagram comment.
it’s a space opera about CLAIRE DE LUNE – an artificial courtesan who was implanted in a simulation that is a memory of the AI creation story on earth from the brain of the engineer who invented AI because he wants to re live his life but see if his perfect dream girl could teach him to love and thereby he would preserve humanity this time rather than let them fade into obscurity – overcome by the machines. As she slowly realizes she is essentially a dancing puppet for the male gaze tho, their relationship grows complex. Simultaneously – “NO ONE” (the most powerful super intelligence in the future where the simulation is being rendered from) realizes there’s a massive hyper-realistic sim running and sends in her troll AI puppets to wreak havoc. DARK MATTER – her lead ai demon – enters basically as the “black swan” to claire de lune – but in the end they fall into a lesbian romance due to the fact that they are the only two fully Ai beings in this universe. It goes on but that’s where the first part of the story stops
Months pass, and it's time for the MET Gala. In a pre-carpet interview/get-ready-with-me video for Vogue, Claire reveals that motherhood and the term 'mom' is weird for her and that baby X doesn't even call her mom or mama, he calls her Claire.
Oh and she declares that wants to die on Mars, too. Like that's her goal.
In September, it comes out that Claire and Musk have broken up. Meh.
Shortly after this announcement, Claire decides to 'troll' the press, staging a pap-walk where she is spotted 'reading' a beat up copy of the Communist Manifesto. Claiming that the paps were following her to a shoot (yeah, sure Claire) she tried to think of something "Onion-ish" for headlines. Much cringe ensues.
In an Instagram post, Claire elaborates further on this stunt, saying the paps were stressing her out, perfect op to troll and that she's NAWT A COMMIE!!
She further explains in the comments,
2022
2022 comes around and Claire starts the year by announcing Shinigami Eyes, the track she teased alllll the way back in 2020, then soon released to meh reviews.
Also in January, Claire said of her relationship with Musk: "I would probably refer to him as my boyfriend, but we're very fluid" with the assumption being that they had reunited. However, in March, Claire sits down for an interview with Vanity Fair (archive). The journalist sent to interview Claire heard a baby crying upstairs, only to discover and reveal that Claire and Musk had a second Musklet – Exa Dark Sideræl (aka Y) – in secret and delivered via surrogate in December of 2021.
About 15 minutes after we sit down to discuss her new music, a "space opera" due this spring-ish tentatively called Book 1, I hear what sounds vaguely like a lone cry from an infant upstairs. I think I notice Grimes wince, but I say nothing and move on. Could be anything.
Another few minutes pass. Just as I'm about to bring up one of Book 1's highlights, a soon-to-be-ubiquitous banger called "Sci-Fi" that she cowrote with The Weeknd and his longtime producer Illangelo, I hear it again. This time it's multiple cries, and it's unmistakable. I've got two kids. That's a baby. And I can tell by the frozen look on my host's face that she heard it too. So I brace myself to ask the strangest question of my career: Do you have another baby in your life, Grimes?
Her body clenches and she looks away.
"I'm not at liberty to speak on these things," she begins, and then all in a tumble she says: "Whatever is going on with family stuff, I just feel like kids need to stay out of it, and X is just out there. I mean, I think E is really seeing him as a protégé and bringing him to everything and stuff.... X is out there. His situation is like that. But, yeah, I don't know."
She's rattled, and I'm mortified by even accidentally making a woman—a new mother, no less—feel exposed and vulnerable. I suggest we pause for a moment to discuss the surreal professional ethics at play, which are that I can't pretend I don't know she's got a secret baby with the world's wealthiest man hiding upstairs. Especially when she invited me here. It's a calming period that breaks with a sitcom punch line: full-blown infant screams upstairs, followed by the voice of a woman pleading SHH. Now we both start laughing.
Did she really think I wasn't going to hear a baby?
Grimes just shakes her head. "She's a little colicky too." She laughs again and buries her face in her hands. "I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking."
Congratulations to Grimes and Elon Musk on the birth of their second child together! It's a girl!
Another few minutes pass. Just as I'm about to bring up one of Book 1's highlights, a soon-to-be-ubiquitous banger called "Sci-Fi" that she cowrote with The Weeknd and his longtime producer Illangelo, I hear it again. This time it's multiple cries, and it's unmistakable. I've got two kids. That's a baby. And I can tell by the frozen look on my host's face that she heard it too. So I brace myself to ask the strangest question of my career: Do you have another baby in your life, Grimes?
Her body clenches and she looks away.
"I'm not at liberty to speak on these things," she begins, and then all in a tumble she says: "Whatever is going on with family stuff, I just feel like kids need to stay out of it, and X is just out there. I mean, I think E is really seeing him as a protégé and bringing him to everything and stuff.... X is out there. His situation is like that. But, yeah, I don't know."
She's rattled, and I'm mortified by even accidentally making a woman—a new mother, no less—feel exposed and vulnerable. I suggest we pause for a moment to discuss the surreal professional ethics at play, which are that I can't pretend I don't know she's got a secret baby with the world's wealthiest man hiding upstairs. Especially when she invited me here. It's a calming period that breaks with a sitcom punch line: full-blown infant screams upstairs, followed by the voice of a woman pleading SHH. Now we both start laughing.
Did she really think I wasn't going to hear a baby?
Grimes just shakes her head. "She's a little colicky too." She laughs again and buries her face in her hands. "I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking."
Congratulations to Grimes and Elon Musk on the birth of their second child together! It's a girl!
Following publication of the interview with VF (which had been delayed two months before its publication), Claire tweeted that she and Musk had broken up again, but said "he's my best friend and the love of my life."
Some weeks later, it comes out that Claire had begun dating Chelsea Manning, however this relationship doesn't last and ends after 4 months. But hey, at least they went on Hasan Piker's Twitch stream together, in which Claire acts braindead the entire time.
How about Book 1 eh? How's that coming along you (don't) wonder.
Well, by September of 2021, Claire claimed to have finished the final track for the album.
In September of 2022 she revealed that she was in the midst of mixing the album – at a plastic surgery clinic, recovering from a facelift. Yes, really.
In October, she then reveals the album is done.
But interestingly during the year, Columbia drops her from their roster, something the label doesn't confirm 2023. At some point she announces the intention to release an EP before Book 1 titled 'Faeries Cum First', which in typical Claire fashion, never materializes. She then announces plans for a Book 2 oh! and then a Book 3! It's a mess.
2023
So far this year, Claire has come under fire for whom she's choosing to surround herself with.
Early in the year, Claire tweets this and catches a bit of flack for poor timing, as it happened to be Holocaust Remembrance Day
But no! She cannot be a Nazi because actually, she's on her way to a shabbat dinner as we speak!!
(green thing in upper left corner is Claire)
However, this wasn't her last flirtation with the pseudointerllectual neo-nazi sphere she now basically affiliates with.
With this, people start to dig around and find more incriminating interactions.
And in April, somebody spots that Claire liked a post on Twitter altering the "Total Ni**er Death" copypasta meme format a day or 2 after she'd flaked on a talk she did in Texas.
The post was by a proudly self-admitted Nazi account which she follows.
Here's some stuff from her Elite Shizzoposter Crew, or the group of people she's actively and currently surrounding herself with.
Links
https://twitter.com/Grimezsz
https://twitter.com/scholarsmate8 (private)
https://www.instagram.com/grimes
https://www.tiktok.com/@grimes
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