Janelle Monáe has felt freer than ever as she’s been embracing public nudity and owning her sexuality in all facets. In Rolling Stone’s June cover, she opened up about changing her lifestyle, which has been seeping through in her recent music videos, public appearances and more.
“I’m much happier when my titties are out and I can run around free,” Monáe told RS. The 37-year-old also noted that her pronouns are she/her, they/them, or “free-ass motherf**ker.”
Monáe was once championed and criticized for wearing sharp, monochrome suits, to which the “Lipstick Lover” singer said, “Even when I was really, really wearing only suits, I was either in a suit or you would find me at my own parties naked. It was no in-between.”
Now, it seems as if the Wondaland West captain has blurred the lines. Monáe shared the visual for the aforementioned track “Lipstick Lover” this month and made a topless appearance. She soon after let it be known that going forward, it’ll be “titties out for the next 15 years.” The single is from her forthcoming album The Age of Pleasure, which releases on June 9, following the Grammy-nominated Dirty Computer five years ago.
“I think being an artist gets lonely,” Janelle told the outlet. “Most people don’t understand what’s going on in my brain. Community has been so helpful to me; it’s beautiful that I have a title called The Age of Pleasure because it actually re-centers me. It’s not about an album anymore. I’ve changed my whole fu**ing lifestyle.”
Elsewhere in the cover story, she revealed that part of her being a free spirit, and dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, was her trying out weed and shrooms. “I grew up fearful of marijuana because I had parents who were addicts,” she said while also revealing that her father had a crack-cocaine addiction. “They would always say, ‘Weed is the gateway drug to being a crackhead,’ and I grew up with that in my mind and heart.”
“Not a lot of people have the luxury of saying or doing what it is I’m doing,” she added. “I think that therapy, life coaching included, should be free for every American. There’s so many people walking around wounded emotionally. We would be better as a country, as a planet, if everybody had the access.”
Give Janelle Monáe’s entire cover story with Rolling Stone a read here.