Fiona Apple isn’t holding anything back these days.
The elusive 42-year-old singer dropped her fifth album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, on Friday (April 17), marking her first new musical release in eight years. In a lengthy and revealing conversation with Vulture, Apple discussed everything from her struggle with anxiety to a secret brief marriage during her twenties.
Here are some of the highlights from the interview.
Friendship with Cara Delevingne
Apple says she’s been “text” friends with model and actress Cara Delevingne for years, but the two have only hung out twice in person. During the recording of Fetch the Bolt Cutters, Delevingne came over to Apple’s Venice Beach home to help sing the album’s title track. “She’s got the British accent that went along with the way Gillian Anderson said it, so it was really funny actually when she started doing it. She was like, [affects exaggerated American accent] ‘Fetch the bolt cutters.’ And I said, ‘Wait, can you just do it with your accent?’ the singer told Vulture. “I love her voice, and I just knew our voices would go really well together.”
Secret marriage during her twenties
Apple is currently single but has remained friends with many of her past lovers. While chatting about the topic, the singer casually revealed that she was once married during her twenties. “My ex-husband, Lionel Deluy, is a very good friend of mine too,” she said. “He’s lovely. I was married very briefly to Lionel.”
Struggle with anxiety and finding the right medications
Apple says she’s been sober for about two or three years now. Since then, her anxiety levels have dropped significantly, but she admitted that she was “really over medicated” for a time. “I had been put on an antipsychotic. Nobody who is not psychotic should be put on an antipsychotic,” Apple said, noting that she’s been diagnosed with OCD and complex developmental PTSD. The singer went through some dismal withdrawals, but since then she’s been in a better mental state. “Apparently all this stuff was supposed to help me with my anxiety, but my anxiety has been so much better since I tapered way down and got off of all the unnecessary ones.”
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Louis CK’s apparent lack of remorse for sexual misconduct
Apple also addressed comedian Louis CK’s apparent lack of remorse for his sexual misconduct in 2017. “I know he’s got such a great brain and he understands why he did that shit,” said Apple, who previously dated the comedian. “I feel robbed that he’s not giving us what he thinks about that.” She’s also tired of CK’s ill-timed jokes. “And the fact that he’s complaining about the money he lost, and that tired joke of, ‘Hey, how’s everybody’s 2020? Did everybody have a great year?’ That was a bad joke when it was done the first time, but it’s not even a joke,” she said.
The liberation of recording at home
Apple says she recorded the entire Fetch the Bolt Cutters album at her home in Venice Beach with her band, GarageBand and an iPhone. The experience has been liberating because she can work at her own pace and isn’t afraid to try new things. “This is where I feel comfortable,” she said, adding that her past recording experiences in studios limited her from blossoming as a musician. “It makes me feel like I wasn’t ever given a chance to be a musician before. Because you’d have to do everything in the studio, and I’m not good at doing things in front of people under pressure,” she said.
Read Apple’s full interview with Vulture here.