Ella Yelich-O’Connor makes for the unlikeliest pop superstar, said Rob Tannenbaum in Rolling Stone. The 17-year-old New Zealander—who goes by the stage name of Lorde—has shot to fame as the anti-Miley; the teen dresses like a witch, makes references to Sylvia Plath, never smiles, and point-blank refuses to twerk. Her feisty Gothic persona is part bluff, she concedes, to cover up the fact that she gets “paralyzingly” nervous. “So I tried bravado. The way I dress and carry myself, a lot of people find it strange or intimidating.” The formula seems to work: Lorde now has a worldwide hit record and two Grammy Awards to her name. On the day her single knocked Miley Cyrus off the No. 1 spot, Ella had a photo shoot in New York. “The photographer kept saying, ‘Pop your hip out. Try to look cute. Big smiles, now.’ And I was like, ‘I’m No. 1 in this country not because I flirt and wink and all that s---, but because I’ve done exactly what I want to do.’ So, no, he did not get smiles.” And with that memory, she actually smiles.
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