Lorde brings out Charli XCX for a performance of ‘Girl, so confusing’ in Los Angeles

Lorde brought out Charli XCX for a performance of ‘Girl, so confusing’ in Los Angeles. Check out footage of the moment below.

• READ MORE: Lorde – ‘Virgin’ review: the inquisitive artist strips herself bare

The Kiwi singer is currently out on her ‘Ultrasound’ world tour, which last night (October 18) took her to Los Angeles’ Kia Forum, where she surprised the crowd by bringing out Charli for a high-octane rendition of their collab track.

The ‘Girl, so confusing’ remix first came around when Charli admitted Lorde served as partial inspiration for the original lyrics, admitting she was “super jealous” of her song ‘Royals’ and its success.

Said jealousy and comparison is what inspired the song’s anthemic pre-chorus: “People say we’re alike / They say we’ve got the same hair / We talk about making music / But I don’t know if it’s honest”.

A few weeks after the release of ‘Brat’, Charli unveiled a new version of the track, this time featuring Lorde, with the two trading confessional lines about their perspectives of each other.

LORDE & CHARLI JUST PERFORMED GIRL SO CONFUSING TOGETHER!!! I AM NOT OKAY pic.twitter.com/iEMZLqoTnw

— аrtem (@artemxcx) October 19, 2025

Lorde brought out Charli xcx to perform the “Girl, so confusing” remix in Los Angeles. pic.twitter.com/rUnDdI32i4

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) October 19, 2025

Charli later told fans the remix was actually Lorde’s idea, recalling: “The day before the record came out, I left her a voice note. [Lorde] replied straight away and was like, ‘Oh, my God, I had no idea you felt this way. I’m so sorry.’ And then was like, ‘You know, maybe I should be on a version of the song.’ I didn’t even ask her. She brought it up.

“So much of this rollout was planned, but sometimes it was not,” she concluded. “Lorde’s remix of ‘Girl, so confusing’ is a perfect example. That wasn’t planned. It took three days total.”

In turn, Lorde called working with Charli “such a huge honour”, adding: “I love that we truly did work it out on the remix. There’s something very brat about that, something very meta and modern. Only Charli could make that happen.”

“Lorde and Charli sharing a stage feels like an apology letter from the universe for everything pop’s been missing lately,” one fan pointedly wrote, with another calling it “pop history”.

A year after its release, the track is still proving to be a cultural talking point, particularly in light of Taylor Swift sharing ‘Actually Romantic’ recently, an apparent diss track directed at the ‘Brat’ singer.

Following the release of Swift’s 12th studio album, ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’, many fans interpreted the lyrics to the song as a swipe at Charli. “I heard you call me ‘Boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave,” Swift sings. “High-fived my ex and then said you’re glad he ghosted me / Wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face / Some people might be offended / But it’s actually sweet.”

Many considered this a rebuttal to Charli’s ‘Sympathy Is A Knife’ from ‘Brat’, on which she sang: “Don’t know if I’m spiralling / One voice tells me that they laugh / George says I’m just paranoid / Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show / Fingers crossed behind my back / I hope they break up real quick.”

This line stuck out to fans upon the track’s release, as Charli is now married to The 1975 drummer George Daniel, while Swift was in a brief relationship with the band’s frontman Matty Healy in 2023.

Comparing ‘Actually Romantic’ to ‘Girl, so confusing’, The Guardian‘s Laura Snapes recently highlighted “the self-scouring insight, compassion and awareness of Lorde’s response to Charli”, with many cultural critics saying Swift’s diss came nowhere near to its depth.

For her part, Charli has refused to comment on the speculation.

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