Whether it’s breakups or spicy wings, SZA isn’t letting anything bug her — for the most part.
On the latest episode of First We Feast’s Hot Ones posted Thursday (Sept. 26), the Grammy winner opened up about her music, career and relationships in between bites of spicy wings, all while wearing alien-like prosthetics and a pair of antennae. “I’m just tired of being not a bug,” she explained of her costume choice.
While talking to host Sean Evans about which songs make her the most emotional to perform, SZA replied, “‘Nobody Gets Me’ because my ex-fiancé hates me so much, and it’s so unfortunate.”
“Every time I sing it, it’s like, ‘Damn, what the f–k?’” she continued, adding that she also gets in her feels while singing Ctrl tracks “Normal Girl,” “20 Something” and “Drew Barrymore,” which she says reminds her of seeing “the boy you like … f–kin’ on some other girl” at a house party.
SZA has been open in the past about how her relationship with her ex has inspired her music, particularly “Nobody Gets Me.” “This particular song in entirety is a story about my ex-fiancé and how we went through all these arguments, and we broke up,” she told Hot 97 in December 2022. “I just felt like I was gonna be doomed to be in hell for the rest of my life because nobody understood me the way he did, and nobody motivated me the way he did.”
While speaking to Evans, who brought up when SZA told Billboard in 2023 that the success of her hit “Kill Bill” “pissed [her] off” because it was “super easy” to write, the R&B star opened up about how she finds the music industry confusing because of how unpredictable it can be. “I never know what’s happening,” she said on Hot Ones. “I be like, ‘I thought you liked this.’ Then they’re like, ‘No, stupid, we hate this.’”
“It’s abusive, but it’s also very fulfilling and validating,” she added. “The toxic [relationships] are the most fun.”
The interview comes ahead of SZA’s highly anticipated third album Lana, which will follow her critically acclaimed sophomore record SOS. The 2022 LP ruled at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for 10 weeks, marking her first album to top the chart.
After sweating through increasingly spicy wings that led her to question Evans’ “sinister and insidious” intentions for the show, the “Snooze” singer gave a candid response when asked at the end of the episode to give fans a life update. “I’m going through a breakup, it’s hot as f–k,” she said.
Watch SZA on Hot Ones above.
