Grimes says baby son X Æ A-Xii calls her by her first name instead of mama
‘Having a baby was a big rebirth for me artistically,’ the musician says
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Your support makes all the difference.Canadian singer Grimes has revealed that her son is not like most children because he refuses to call her “mama”.
The 33-year-old opened about how motherhood has affected her in a video with Vogue while she got ready for the Met Gala on 13 September.
Grimes and her partner, Elon Musk, welcomed their son, X Æ A-XII, in May 2020 after two years of dating.
The singer, whose real name is Claire Boucher, described becoming a mother as her own “rebirth”.
“I think having a baby was a big rebirth for me artistically,” she told Vogue.
She also revealed that she doesn’t “identify” with the label of being a mother.
“Being a mother feels weird to say, I don’t identify with that word. Which is also weird because, X, he says ‘Claire’ but he doesn’t say ‘mama’.
“Maybe he can sense my distaste for the word mother,” she said. “Which, I don’t even know why I have a distaste for it. I respect it. I just can’t identify with it.”
Grimes arrived at Monday’s event wearing a custom hand-pleated silk gown by Dutch designer Iris Van Herpen, who she says has been “one of her favourites” since her career began.
Herpen told Vogue the garment was “inspired by distant futures” and took more than 900 hours to complete.
The nude and black dress featured swooping lightning-bolt shapes that extended upwards toward the neck. Herpen revealed that these were created using liquid silicone before being added to the fabric.
“Iris has been one of our favourites. I just feel a kinship to women behind the computer,” Grimes said.
“She is a technologist. And I feel like she’s always been on another level. She’s pushing the boundaries in a way that I don’t know if anyone is actually competing with her?” she said.
As she got ready to leave her hotel for fashion’s biggest night, she told Vogue cameras that her futuristic earpieces – the finishing touches to her final look – were bought from Etsy.
“I think this might be my best look ever actually,” she said.
In a nod to the Met Gala theme, “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion”, she also carried a sword which was cast from a Colt AR-15A3 gun.
The accessory was created by MSCHF, a New York-based company that melts down unwanted guns.
“It’s from these people who are getting people’s [guns] who don’t want to have their automatic rifles anymore, and are melting them down and making them perfect replicas of medieval swords, which I think is just so cool — I think it’s a beautiful thing,” Grimes told the magazine.
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