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Grimes Gets Rape Threats, Opens Up About Fears, the Cost of Music Success

GrimesSimon Joyner, Getty

It's been a whirlwind year for singer-songwriter Grimes, from her third studio album Visions being met with critical acclaim to having hearing problems bad enough that she had to axe an entire European tour.

The 24-year-old musician, born Claire Boucher, has tried to stay true to herself by cutting out the middle man in keeping in touch with her fans. Boucher took to popular blogging platform Tumblr -- the same one Frank Ocean used to post his unforgettable admission of having a past male love interest -- in hopes of giving a more intimate and accurate portrayal of who she is and what she stands for.

"I feel like a lot of the things I do and say are misrepresented by journalists and the media," she wrote on December 24. "I can only control what goes out by trying to be real, but any writer will skew a story into what they want it to be."

One of her most candid and revealing posts came three days after this in response to a question from a fan, "Claire, are you ever scared of anything?"

"This is the only question im gonna answer here," she wrote. "I think I need to turn off the Q/A thing because I've been getting like, rape threats and stuff lol. i guess that's not funny. And I guess it sort of leads directly into my answer to this question.

"I get scared a lot and people can be incredibly cruel," she admitted. "Generally, other people are the biggest barrier between you and whatever it is your want to do.

"Sometimes I completely break down. There is a ton of pressure on me all the time, and a lot of people really hate me and are certainly not meek about letting me know that. If you decide to do something and it's different from what other people are doing, you will probably make some people very angry and words can be devastating."

The singer went on to explain how she'd lost her family (though only temporarily), a three-year long relationship, and a lot of her friends due to putting her art first. She reveals that she wasn't getting paid initially for performing and had to sleep in a tent, which had been in turns fun and "really dark," considering she had nothing else to fall back on if she didn't succeed.

"I mean, I think Grimes succeeded because I had to discard everything else in my life in order to do it," she wrote. "I was so fucking desperate to make it work, I don't think I could have possibly allowed it to fail. I can't stress how powerful the human mind is. If you want something bad enough, you can probably find a way to make it work."

Grimes' final piece of advice? Go after what you want if you're lucky enough to be able to, because poverty, community backlash, and a general lack of opportunities mean that not everyone has the chance to follow their dreams.

"Bad things can happen, but every horrible thing that has ever happened to me has added integrity to my art and improved my understanding of the human race," she wrote, adding, "I don't see the point of living if you're aren't doing the thing you love."

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lovetheworld82

Who?

January 02 2013 at 5:03 PM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
lakers84

THIS IS....pure crap

January 02 2013 at 2:34 PM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to lakers84's comment
lovetheworld82

NO! THIS IS SPARTA!!!!!!!!

January 02 2013 at 4:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Me

Uh... alrightie then. In my opinion, this is just another Satan themed video, there are so many already.

January 02 2013 at 1:46 PM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Me's comment
lovetheworld82

I love Satan! lovely material....wait?

January 02 2013 at 4:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
itr

Actually, the music video is partially based on the painting "The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things" by Hieronymus Bosch. I guess it could be construed as 'Satanic' though.

January 14 2013 at 1:38 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply