Fiona Apple hasn’t done an interview since 2012, when she released her last album, The Idler Wheel. But strangely, she recently reached out to Vulture’s Rachel Handler (OK, that part isn’t strange, as Handler is the best celeb whisperer in town) and requested an interview…via a Hotmail email address. That part is strange. Who still uses Hotmail?
Apple is famously private, but she wanted to comment on her song “Criminal” and the confusion surrounding its use in the new movie Hustlers (out now). Apple licensed the song for the film, donating two years of her future royalties to RAICES, a refugee-assistance organization.
But when Hustlers director Lorene Scafaria was interviewed about the film for Variety on Twitter, they overdubbed the audio of her saying “refugees” and made it sound like Apple was giving her profits only to the movie. Variety later deleted their tweet and called it a glitch; Rachel Handler tweeted about the weirdness of the whole thing; and then Apple herself reached out to Handler to share her side of the story. Apple initially wanted her song included in the female-driven film because of “what it was and who was in it.” The flick is based on a true story of strippers scamming Wall Street jerks, and it’s teeming with fierce women of color: Jennifer Lopez, Cardi B, and Lizzo star.
Of course, we all also want to know whether there’s any new music on the horizon, too.
In the interview, Apple revealed that she hopes her follow-up to The Idler will be ready for an early 2020 release. When asked by Handler how this record should compare to her past work, Apple said: “It’s probably its own thing. But I don’t know how to articulate that. It’s like, if you’ve been working out every day for a month and then nobody sees you, they see the difference, but if you’ve been doing it all the time, you don’t really see the difference. I can’t really know the growth or the evolution or anything like that in what I do, because I’m in the middle of it.”
Read the full Fiona interview on Vulture here.
