Brat's Next Act

Just married. Pivoting to film in magnificent fashion. After a seemingly endless summer of brat, Charli xcx talks to ANNA PEELE about her new season of stardom

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Charli xcx is emoting more than seems possible for someone whose eyes—in public, at least—are nearly always conveying vacant disdain or covered by sunglasses. I arrived at her Hollywood Hills home, as requested, before 8 a.m.—an inconceivable meeting time for a person who loves to go out so much that she named one song for what she expects to hear when she’s partying (“Club Classics”) and another for the number of days a year she partakes in such activities (“365”). Throughout the conversation in her poolside courtyard, Charli rests on the lounge chair in every possible permutation of repose, from elbows on knees to partial recline to supine, and then supine the other way (another Charli banger: “360”).

Charli is freshly showered, twisting her damp waves until a tumbleweed of hair falls to the ground and rolls across the patio. She is freckled (who knew Charli xcx had freckles?) and makeup-free. (She is also bra-free, though that we have seen before.) Her ubiquitous Balenciaga and Mugler bags are elsewhere—she is wearing Bottega Veneta flats and a stomach-covering vintage T-shirt featuring three buxom women drawn by fetish artist Eric Stanton, as well as jeans by Guess, which are impossible to look at without triggering the lyrics of Charli’s song of the same name featuring Billie Eilish.