Canadian singer Grimes was completely “unprepared” for the “very disturbing” backlash she received for defending her billionaire boyfriend Elon Musk in a series of Twitter posts last year (18).
The musician, real name Claire Elise Boucher, was first linked to the Tesla co-founder in April, 2018, after exchanging flirty messages via Twitter, and they made their red carpet debut as a couple at New York City’s prestigious Met Gala weeks later.
However, Grimes became caught up in a scandal shortly afterwards when she attempted to stand up for her man, hitting back at claims suggesting Musk has stopped employees at his Tesla firm from unionising and defending him for reportedly donating to various Republican political campaigns.
Her series of now-deleted tweets quickly hit headlines, and Grimes is still stunned at the attention paid to her social media posts.
“I was simply unprepared,” she tells The Wall Street Journal Magazine of the unexpected media scrutiny.
“I’ve just been wallowing in indie music for, like, a decade… I just thought I could keep going along in my funny little way, and then you casually respond to someone in a tweet and it’s on Fox News, and you’re like, ‘Ugh,’ you know? That was a very disturbing moment.”
The 31 year old has since avoided publicly commenting on Musk’s business dealings while keeping their relationship relatively under wraps, and Grimes has nothing but good things to say about her boyfriend of almost a year – although she hates having to discuss her dating life in the press.
After letting out a long groan at the mention of the 47 year old’s name, Grimes said, “He’s a super-interesting godd**n person.”
“Look, I love him, he’s great,” she continued, although she didn’t refer to Musk by name.
Meanwhile, the South African business mogul offered up his own compliment about Grimes, who is currently going by the name “c”, the symbol for the speed of light.
“I love c’s wild fae (fairy) artistic creativity and hyper intense work ethic,” he writes in a brief email to the publication.
The news of Grimes’ romance with Musk emerged weeks after his split from actress Amber Heard, with whom he had had an on/off relationship from 2016, following her marriage separation from Johnny Depp.