Charli XCX’s live shows always pull in an A-list crowd – but one Hollywood star got more than he bargained for at her Glastonbury set last year.
The Essex-born singer brought her Brat show to The Other Stage on the Saturday night of last year’s festival and closed the performance by spectacularly burning her fluorescent green backdrop.
But the (planned) moment caused chaos on the wings of the stage, where VIP festivalgoers – including a rumoured contender for the James Bond role – were standing on a platform.
Appearing on Greg James’s Radio 1 breakfast show on Friday (26 June), Charli explained: “I remember after the show, Harris Dickinson was there with his girlfriend Rose [Gray, singer].
“They were both like, 'We thought we were going to die because you were burning the stage down and then there were a lot of frantic firemen running around, trying to put it out. We didn't know if it had gone wrong’.
“I was like, 'Oh my God, I'm so sorry.' But no, it was fine.”
Babygirl star Dickinson is believed to be on the shortlist for the 007 role, alongside the likes of Masters of the Air actor Callum Turner, Wuthering Heights’ Jacob Elordi and Theo James, who is best-known for The White Lotus.
Meanwhile, Charli has left the culturally impactful album Brat behind and entered a divisive new era – but she’s denied she’s making a “rock” album, despite singing in the chorus of lead single: “I think the dancefloor is dead, so now we’re making rock music.”
The track, titled “Rock Music”, received a mixed reaction from fans largely due to the fact it is, noticeably, not a rock song.
The star addressed the controversy in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, telling the publication: “Obviously, I know that there’s been a lot of conversation around me making a rock album, which is something I never said.
“But to be honest, I’ve never thought about genre in a binary way. I find that to be a very old-school notion. I don’t even know what the genre is. It’s just me and [producers and co-writers] AG Cook and Finn Keane, doing our thing.”
In the same interview, Charli admitted she is currently in “the worst place mentally that I’ve been in my life” and said she has been spending more time “offline”.
“I don’t really look as much anymore,” she said. “It’s just better for my brain. I know people probably won’t believe me, because I am inherently, at least in the past, a very online artist.”
Charli XCX’s seventh album, Music, Fashion, Film will be released on 24 July.
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