NEED TO KNOW
- SZA told Chappell Roan during an interview for Interview magazine that she was a “freakazoid” as a child
- “I struggled to find friends because I’d just be talking about all this mystical s—,” she told the “Pink Pony Club” singer.
- SZA previously told PEOPLE about being bullied as a child and its impact. “I realized that all the things that made me feel so lame were actually what made me into who I am,” she said in 2023
SZA is giving insight into her childhood.
In an interview with Interview magazine where Chappell Roan chats with the “Kill Bill” singer, SZA, 35, revealed that she was a “freakazoid” as a kid.
When Roan, 27, asked SZA if she believed in magic, SZA responded that she feels like “everything is magic” and finds inspiration in bodies of water. “I believe that there’s no body of water that I can be around and not catch a message about something. Especially if it’s a waterfall. Any moving water.”
“Water is alive. It’s a conscious, sentient force. It holds memory. We can only drink one percent of it even though we’re made of it, and it’s all over the f—ing world. And I find that water is my conduit for messaging and energy.”
SZA added that she “gave so much to the ocean” when she dropped her album. “I go to the ocean all the time and I laugh and eat cakes and brownies and then give them to her. I’m not even kidding.”
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However, SZA’s waxing poetic on the ocean didn’t stop there, as she elaborated on her beliefs in the mystical and magical, stemming back to her childhood.
“I was a freakazoid. I struggled to find friends because I’d just be talking about all this mystical s—, but it’s also from watching a lot of Xena[: Warrior Princess] and Hercules[: The Legendary Journeys] and Buffy [the Vampire Slayer]. It just cooked me, real bad,” she told the “Pink Pony Club” singer.
“I was reading about Akashic records at like 7, so I was like, ”Do you guys want to call Akasha?’ And everybody was like, ‘You’re so f—ing weird, and I’m scared of you.”
The “Scorsese Baby Daddy” singer also spoke about the “weirdest” things she did as a child, which were Harriet the Spy coded.
“I used to collect little secrets and clues about everybody’s life that they weren’t saying out loud and then keep them in manila folders in a filling cabinet. Everyone had their own folder,” she told Roan, who laughed.
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One example SZA had was when she found a business card for a strip club in her father’s coat and placed it in a manila folder, never telling him.
“It was literally just because I was being a diabolical freak. It was pre–Harriet the Spy. I would write it down in the notebook and keep the manila folder. And then, once I saw Harriet the Spy, I’m like, “Oh, this is full justification that this is normal.”
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SZA told PEOPLE in January 2023 how she experienced bullying in different forms growing up.
“I was bullied because I wasn’t quiet and I was awkward at the same time,” the Grammy-winner tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “I wasn’t this tiny sad victim, but I was more so attacked just because it was giving ‘What is wrong with you?’ energy.”
“I always thought, ‘Oh my God.’ I’ll never have the approval of anyone in life, this must be my defining factor, this must be the bottom line,” she adds.
However, the experience made her who she is. “I realized that all the things that made me feel so lame were actually what made me into who I am.”
“Everyone who experiences bullying, that just sucks, but it’s going to lead you to something, it has to,” SZA added at the time. “If you could hold on and just wait until high school is over because 10 years from now, I promise you, none of those people will matter.”