Charli XCX on the set of new York Cover shooting of the magazine.
Photo: Lea Garn for New York Magazine
David LaChapelle has spent much of his career photographing pop icons, including Cher, Janet Jackson and Madonna. For the cover of new YorkIn the “Autumn Preview” issue of Charli XCX to that list, creating a photo portfolio that captures the fever dream of Charli’s rise to superstardom. Here, LaChapelle explains how the concept came about.
I’ve always loved the rawness of B-movies, tabloids and Hollywood Babylon. Charli has had such a successful career, but this is a new level for her and I wanted to do something that was somewhat tabloid but also had some surreal elements that dealt with the nature of her breakthrough. The shoot plays with these ideas in a humorous way.
The underwater shot – that’s Charli’s water birth into the bratosphere. On the cover, she’s escaping the paparazzi and running from the underbelly of fame, the tabloid side. And she’s escaped, but she’s still in handcuffs. It could be a B-movie poster, right? I didn’t provide any context for what she was arrested for. She just broke the rules. She was a brat and she broke the rules.
She’s kind of trapped in fame and all the tabloid photographers are chasing her. An animal caught in the woods would bite its own limb off – she bites her hand off. As she lies on the stretcher, you see people still taking pictures of her, the paparazzi and the fans. People will be watching the rise as well as the fall. Then she’ll be taken to the hospital and probably given some kind of painkiller. She’s hallucinating. She’s stuck in a dreamscape, but in the end she breaks free.
A prop worker sits in a cooler on the set.
Photo: Lea Garn for New York Magazine
The hallucination kind of sums up the whole thing. Rather than a real Hollywood tragedy, it’s more of a fantasy. And one shouldn’t read too much into it, but, yes, maybe she’s hallucinating about this whole thing – this sudden meteoric rise with bratthen Kamala Harris. That’s a lot for everyone to process.
I’ve seen a lot of pop stars in my career and when they get to the next level they’re completely exhausted and shaken up. But I think she’s got enough experience to handle it all well. It didn’t come suddenly and it wasn’t something she didn’t want. She’s been doing this for a long time. She’s ready for it.
