Claire Elise Boucher (also known as c), better known by her stage persona and character Grimes, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, producer, artist, model, DJ, video editor, and music video director.[1] Born and raised in Vancouver, she first became involved with the underground music scene and began recording her own experimental music while attending McGill University in Montréal.
Grimes' debut album, Geidi Primes, was released on cassette in 2010 through Arbutus Records. Later in 2010, Grimes released her second album, Halfaxa, also through Arbutus. In 2011, Grimes released a split 9 track extended play with d'Eon called Darkbloom. Her recording name was initially claimed to be a reference to Ken Grimes, an outsider artist best known for drawings of aliens.[2] However, in December 2014 she revealed on Twitter that the origin of her name was from listing her music on MySpace in the grime genre multiple times, even though she didn't know what grime music was at the time. In May 2011 she opened for Lykke Li on her North American Tour,[3] and the following August her debut album was re-released through No Pain in Pop Records, in CD and vinyl format for the first time.[4] Also in 2011, she made an appearance on Majical Cloudz's single Dream World[5] and collaborated with DJ/producer Blood Diamonds (now BloodPop).[6]
She signed with record label 4AD in January 2012. Her third full-length solo studio album Visions was released on February 21 in Canada through Arbutus, while being released elsewhere through 4AD the following month.[7]Visions received critical acclaim from music critics and appeared on numerous music publications' year-end lists. NME included it on their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2013. The album's promotional single, "Oblivion", also received additional acclaim. Pitchfork Media ranked "Oblivion" number-one on their 200 Best Tracks of the Decade So Far in 2014,[8] while NME went as far as to include it on their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. Grimes recorded the album in extended isolation[9] at home in Montreal, and described her writing process as being "equally enjoyable and tortuous".[10] She felt that its difficulty contributed to its success.[11] Grimes described her composition conditions as blacking out her windows, taking amphetamines, and staying awake for three weeks without eating.[12] She added that she could not make music during the day. Grimes later clarified that she "hated" hard drugs and their impact on her friends, and did not want to be associated with their use.[13]
In April 2013, Grimes posted a written statement addressing her experience as a female musician in an industry rife with sexism and expressed disappointment that her feminist stance was often interpreted as anti-male.[14] On December 17, 2013, Grimes posted to her Tumblr that she had signed to Jay-Z's management company Roc Nation, whilst still signed to 4AD.[15]
2014–2017: Go, REALiTi, Art Angels, Tour[]
On June 26, 2014, Grimes premiered her new track "Go", featuring Blood Diamonds and written for Barbadian recording artist Rihanna, on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show and uploaded it to her official SoundCloud page and website for free download, showcasing a new sound for herself while she was still working on her fourth solo studio album.[16] On August 21, Grimes posted a teaser for the music video, directed by her and her brother Mac Boucher.[17] Despite receiving generally positive reviews from music critics, it had a polarizing reaction from fans due to its departure from her previous sound. Rolling Stone ranked it number fourteen on their Best Songs of 2014 list, calling it "a club hallucination somewhere between Rihanna and Skrillex, sung with a ravenous desire that's all her own".[18]
She eventually scrapped an entire album she had been recording and despite initial reports claiming that the cancellation was due to negative reactions to "Go', Grimes later clarified that the album was "too depressing" and "didn't want to tour for it", adding that "people's reactions do not factor in [her] choices" and that "Go" was never intended to be on the cancelled album. She concluded her comments by saying that the album might be released someday for free.[19] On March 8, 2015, she released a self-directed video for a demo from the abandoned album, "REALiTi", which received critical acclaim from music critics, being named Best New Music by Jenn Pelly from Pitchfork, calling it the "best new Grimes song since Visions".[20]
On March 15, 2015, Grimes performed lead vocals on a new song by indie pop band Bleachers, Entropy, for the HBO TV show Girls.[21] On May 24, 2015, Grimes announced via a series of Tweets to her fans that her upcoming album will be "surprise" released sometime in October. She also said it "probably will be accompanied by two simultaneous single releases with an unspecified date" and that the "album will be a departure from previous singles 'Go' and 'REALiTi'", and had been recorded using "real instruments".[22] In the summer of 2015, Grimes toured with Lana Del Rey for several of her Endless Summer tour dates. Grimes brought HANA on this tour to perform with her.
Posting the cover of her upcoming album, Art Angels via Instagram on 20 October 2015, Grimes commented, "Art Angels: album cover. Music & video next week. Artwork by Grimes".[23] On 26 October 2015, she released the lead single of the album, "Flesh without Blood", accompanied with a double music video that also featured the song "Life in the Vivid Dream".[24] Shortly after, "SCREAM" was released as the second single from the album. After its November release, the album received stellar reviews, garnering an 88 (out of 100) rating on Metacritic.[25]
On January 12, 2016, Grimes announced she would be opening for Florence + The Machine on their American tour, called How Beautiful tour which would take place during spring/summer of the same year.
The music video for the second promotional single off Art Angels, "Kill V. Maim", was released on January 19. A music video for "California", the third promotional single, followed on May 9, 2016.
On February 2, 2017, Grimes premiered on Tidal the high budget futuristic music video of "Venus Fly", starring herself and Janelle Monáe. The video was uploaded on YouTube on February 9, 2017.[26] She won Best Dance Video for "Venus Fly" at the Much Music Video Awards.[27] That year, Grimes won a JUNO Award for Video of the Year, for "Kill V. Maim".[28] On October 19, 2017, Grimes released a cover of Tegan and Sara's "Dark Come Soon" with HANA as part of their band Trashique. The cover is a part of Tegan and Sara's The Con X: Covers album.[29]
2018-2020: 4AD, Poppy, Miss Anthropocene, Collaborations, WarNymph[]
By late 2017 and early 2018, Grimes revealed on both Instagram and Twitter that she was working on her fifth upcoming album, which she stated would be released by "spring, but realistically fall".[30] However, on February 15, 2018, she updated her status on a previous Instagram post about her delaying the potential release of the unnamed album, stating: "well no music any time soon after all... music industry is trash".[31] It was later revealed that this was due to a clash with her label, 4AD, not her management company, Roc Nation.[32] She later apologized for this statement, removing it from her social media.[33][34] She added:[35]
❝ Yeah but i'm solving it. i just have to take one last hit. it sucks, but i'd rather not make fans suffer thru more unexplained drama. theres some srsly fucked up and crazy shit going behind the scenes in my career this whole time i've never spoken of to protect myself legally. ❞
❝ i'm not allowed to say but there r people involved in my career who would rather destroy me than build something. Indie music is more about egos than money. if u hurt someone's ego, they don't mind forgoing what you are potentially worth to them to take u down ❞ - Grimes on Twitter[36]
Grimes later revealed on an Instagram post that she would eventually be releasing two albums, and that "they would be separated by a period of time",[37] with the first being released with 4AD, and the second with an undisclosed label.[37] Boucher stated that this first album would be "highly collaborative and most glorious light", with the second highlighting themes of "pure darkness and chaos".[37] Considering the sound, concept, visuals and overall theme of Miss Anthropocene, as well as the standard edition of the album having two collaborations in total, it is safe to assume that it is the "extreme darkness and chaos" album, while the "highly collaborative and most glorious light" album remains unreleased and possibly scrapped, or it might be the upcoming sixth studio album, Book 1.[speculated]
On April 10, 2018, Grimes was featured on Pynk by Janelle Monáe. On May 30, 2018, Grimes was featured on Love4eva by LOONA yyxy from their EP Beauty & the Beat. On June 15, 2018, she was featured in a video for Apple's Behind the Mac series on their YouTube channel, and it was accompanied by an early demo of a song from her upcoming album titled That's What the Drugs Are For.[38] On the same day, she posted two Twitter videos previewing two songs from her upcoming album, adore u (beautiful game) and 4 æm.[39][40] In 2018, Grimes composed the theme music for Netflix's animated series Hilda.[41]
On October 31, 2018, Grimes was featured on Play Destroy by Poppy on her album Am I a Girl?. The collaboration had been hinted at in May 2018 through a series of Instagram postings from both artists.[44][45]
The collaboration also intended to encompass Grimes' single of that year, We Appreciate Power, but the release version didn't feature Poppy.
Sometime after the release of We Appreciate Power, Poppy revealed in an interview with Billboard that she was "bullied into submission" by Grimes, and that Grimes prevented the release of the song on its planned release date months before the release of Poppy's album, Am I a Girl?.[46] Poppy further claimed that Grimes bullied songwriters [she previously worked with] into signing non-disclosure agreements and not to take credit for songs that they were a part of. Chris Greatti, a close friend and frequent collaborator of Poppy's, confirmed that We Appreciate Power was in fact written by Grimes, HANA and himself.[47] On January 28, 2021, during a YouTube livestream, a fan asked Grimes how she felt about Poppy after she parted ways with Titanic Sinclair.[48] Grimes responded to the fan saying: "Prob she is nicer now. We haven't spoken but I suspect that was the issue."[48]
On March 13, 2019, Grimes released a demo unrelated to the upcoming album. The demo is titled Pretty Dark, which, according to the video description, is "NOT a single... just a demo. This is from an AR musical i'm working on."[49] She added: "...gna start making AR (or illustrated?) 'sub-members' within Grimes (The art angels, as it were...) They are the main characters from the book/musical im working on..."[49] She had this "whole other world" she was working on besides what Grimes currently is. She also mentioned that "while im finishing my album im just gonna start casually dropping stuff as i see fit."[49] The character in the music video is named Dark.[49]
On March 19, 2019, Grimes announced via Instagram that her new album will be titled Miss_Anthrop0cene and will be a concept album "about the anthropomorphic Goddess of climate Change..."[50] and "Each song will be a different embodiement of human extinction as depicted through a pop star Demonology."[50] Her goal with this album was to "make climate change fun... so maybe it'll be a bit easier to look at if it can exist as a character and not just abstract doom."[50] In terms of what she would be releasing beforehand, she said: "It's possible I will drop an EP or a few more singles of synth-based stuff b4 the album because its mostly ethereal nu metal (ish), and i know a lot of people miss the synths and whatnot."[50]
On April 4, 2019, Grimes posted a promotional post on Instagram for the piece about her in Cultured Magazine, and in it she casually stated, "p.s. I hid an ambient psychedelic somewhere on SoundCloud I doubt u can find it but if u can I dunno, there tis."[51][52] In an earlier post dated March 24, 2019, Grimes had posted a picture with a Russian caption translating to 'princess'.[citation needed] One Instagram follower of Grimes (username 'grimesfedida') speculated that "… The lyrics from your story it's from World Princess Part.3?"[citation needed] Grimes responded: "hha it's Frank Sinatra … i wish i wrote that.".[citation needed] Someone found the secret track, titled принцесса (Russian for "princess"). It was posted March 30, 2019 on SoundCloud under the name Dark, location listed as Death Star, Antarctica.[53]
By the summer of 2019, Grimes' manager Lauren Valencia had been suffering from an aggressive form of breast cancer[54], to which she succumbed to in July.[55] Her death was a great loss to Grimes, for she said in an Instagram post:[56]
❝ [..] For the last seven years [2012-2019] you were the best manager a girl could ask for. I'm glad I saw the world with you (..) [..] ❞
The upcoming album Miss Anthropocene would be in memory of her.[57]
The release cycle of Miss Anthropocene would begin in September 2019, when Grimes released the music video for Violence, featuring i_o, on September 5, 2019. On October 25, 2019, an unfinished version of the album was leaked online[58], with the first demos of songs intented for the album already having been leaked back in November 2018.[59][60] The album would again leak in November.[61]
Grimes released a visualizer video for the song So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth on November 15th. On November 29, 2019, Grimes released the single My Name is Dark. On December 13, 2019, Grimes released another single 4ÆM. On February 12, 2020, she released the last single Delete Forever. Miss Anthropocene was released on February 21, 2020.
In December of 2019, Grimes posted on Twitter and Instagram in advocacy that 'ethereal' be made a genre on Spotify.[62][63], citing lack of access to playlisting and marketing.[64] The genre was later recognized.[65][66]
At the turn of the year, Grimes announced to the public her pregnancy with Elon Musk's (her current boyfriend at the time) child,[67] and would endure months of pain and suffering, as her body was not suited for carrying a child.[68][69] Complications from the pregancy would stun some creative output from her, particularly the release of So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth music video,[70] which would only be leaked almost four years later.[71]
Grimes premiered a digital character of herself in the form of WarNymph around this time, as a kind of virtual avatar that would replace her when it came to being present somewhere.
After the album's release, Grimes would release music/camera test videos for IDORU and You'll Miss Me When I'm Not Around, songs on Miss Anthropocene, with the latter having greenscreen videos and having its stems released in an endeavour to encourage fans to remix the song and video to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.[72]
Grimes collaborated on two more songs - Ashnikko's Cry and BENEE's Sheesh, in 2020.
2021- : Columbia Records, Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, elf.tech, GrimesAI, Collaborations, Anyma[]
On the first of January, Grimes released Miss Anthropocene (Rave Edition), a remix album featuring remixes of certain Miss Anthropocene songs by other artists.[75]
By then, Grimes had parted ways with her eight year long partnership with 4AD and announced signing to another major record label, Columbia Records, on March 8th, 2021, after the news leaked.[76][77]
That autumn, Grimes would travel to Mexico to shoot music videos for her next album, Book 1.[78] Two music videos were shot for Player of Games and 100% Tragedy, though the latter was not ever released. In the meantime, Grimes would begin planning her next album's release cycle, but decisision differences between her and Columbia Records would cause delays.[79]
By the beginning of autumn, Grimes had premiered the demo for Player of Games, Utopia, 100% Tragedy[80] and posted snippets of Shinigami Eyes on her social media,[81] as well as confirmed a collaboration with The Weeknd[82] and Eartheater,[83] though the album's name or release date was still tentative, as it was still in the works.
To complement the universe of Book 1, Grimes, Chris Lake and others were working on a side project called NPC, and, to introduce them, released a collaborative single - A Drug From God.
On September 30, Grimes released a song titled LOVE, exclusively on her social media, as a musically spun emotional response "(..) to all the privacy invasion, bad press, online hate and harassment by paparazzis I’ve experienced [that] week."[84]
By December, Grimes would reveal the name of the album[85][86] and, on the 3rd, release its first 'chapter' single, Player of Games.
Shinigami Eyes would be released almost two months later on January 25th, 2022, as the second 'chapter' single.
Book 1, the creative decisions, the visuals and the soundscape would be influenced by Grimes' experiences being present with SpaceX missions,[87] Elon Musk, Silicon Valley, sagas, history, artificial intelligence, as well as her own lore she had been writing since 2019.[88] After the birth of her first child, she became a much more optimistic and enlightened person.[89][citation needed] She views Book 1 as her greatest work yet.[90]
But in 2022, intentions would not materialize. Grimes would need to deal with a mix of personal issues[91][92], aleniation with her label,[93] and the birth of another child, her daughter Exa Dark Sideræl.[94] Nevertheless, Grimes would continue to engage with the press and the creative industry at large, though there would be no new songs or an album in 2022 aside from Shinigami Eyes.
A week after the release of Shinigami Eyes, Grimes teased an EP that would act as a prelude to Book 1 called Fairies Cum First.[95][96] But it never happened.
In January, the 10th anniversary vinyl of her album Visions was released.[97]
In 2022, Grimes embarked on a personal European and American DJ 'tour', and played as the opening act for Swedish House Mafia's Paradise Again world tour at two venues.[98][99]
In April, Grimes was featured on the song Last Day / Новый день by the Russian band IC3PEAK.
In August, Grimes apperared on the song No Man's Land by Bella Poarch.
In Autumn, Grimes gave long awaited details about the forthcoming album: It was in the stage of being mixed, had 20 songs on it, and she was contemplating whether to split them in a double album, Book 1 and Book 2 respectively,[100] though the latter would not go on to be an album name, but instead the name of her 'new age' lore, separate from Book 1.
In January of 2023, the song Fly To You, which is a collaboration between Grimes, Caroline Polachek and Dido, was announced and released on February 14th.[101]
In 2023, Grimes would again travel to Europe to do DJ sets and attend conferences concerned about articial intelligence, cryptocurrency, and the music industry.[102][103]
Also in 2023, Grimes would begin dating Italian record producer and DJ Anyma[104], whom she met already back in 2022 when they collaborated on Welcome To The Opera. That song would be released on June 8th, but would appear on Anyma's album Genesys. Grimes in return got the song MUSIC 4 MACHINES[105][106] as they traded them.[107]
In April, Grimes would announce elf.tech and GrimesAI, the first being a work in progress service website, while the latter is the name of a voice model that transforms your voice into Grimes'.[108] This sparked a competition and subsequent continuous production of songs featuring GrimesAI, many of whom Grimes has been impressed by.[109]
elf.tech would go on to also host the stems of Miss Anthropocene songs (with the exception of My Name is Dark), and the released singles of Book 1, in addition to Passage (out), a spoken track commentary concerning the lore of Book 2. It briefly hosted encoded Book 1 tracklists and the original lyrics of Music 4 Machines.
Later Grimes revealed that she had realized the creation of an entirely new concept of an album - Book 3 - that would feature tracks featuring GrimesAI produced by invited indie producers, likely those most successful with GrimesAI.
This year would also see the launch of GRIMES_V1, which is an AI clone of herself trained on her texts, interviews, and writings.[110] It tweets commentary about things Grimes is interested in on X.[111] A similar model, called Our Lady Of Perpetual Chaos, exists as a spokesperson of CHAOS on Grimes' Discord server Grimes Metaverse Super Beta, now renamed to ELF TECH.[112]
By 2024, Grimes would abandon her on and off six year relationship with the businessman Elon Musk,[113][114] but would become embroiled in a custody case with him concerning their three children, the third of which, Techno Mechanius Musk, was born in the same year as Exa.[115] This would again stifle creative output from her, and would not leave a positive mark on her mental health.[citation needed]
A new single by Grimes, seeking to revive the leadup to Book 1, called I Wanna Be Software, was released on July 28th. But no new songs came after it.
On November 3rd, a collaboration between Sevdaliza and Grimes was released with the song Nothing Lasts Forever.
The year of 2024 would see Grimes come back to the music scene.
She set off the year by playing a DJ set at AXE Ceremonia, Mexico. In it, she premiered new music, like MUSIC 4 MACHINES and Enjoy the angels on earth, the latter a remixed version by her, known as Beauty And The Beast.
Grimes said she would like to release an album that would be the best of Book 1, in addition to the many new songs she has made. Her sorrows with her custody battle, Breakup with Elon Musk, and the new found creative and emotional freedom after it served as fuel for her non-stop writing and production sessions; The fact that her public speech was used against her during the custody case is why she could do so little in the year prior.[118][119]
More from Grimes would come in October of 2024, when ScreaM Records released her remix of aespa's song Supernova.[120]
A month later, Grimes remixed Magdalena Bay's song Image, adding that it's her way of "tentatively returning to music".[121][122]
Musical style[]
Grimes' music is unusual, and can be best described as a mix of elements of hip-hop, art pop, synth pop, dream pop, baroque pop, witch house, darkwave, ambient, electro R&B. She herself describes her music as ''post-Internet'' and ''ADD music''.[123]The Guardian summarised her musical style as "Sounding a little like everything you've ever heard, the whole sounds like nothing you've ever heard."[citation needed] Her work has been likened to various artists, including Björk, Siouxsie Sioux, and Enya. Grimes was described by Tastemakers Magazine as an "alien love-child of Aphex Twin and ABBA".[citation needed]
[How would you describe your own music?] It's post-Internet. There are a few things to note. People who are now over 30 grew up along with the development of music fashion and genres. Everyone younger immediately got all the styles, and the Internet is the most ordinary thing for them. Genres as defining concepts are now almost useless. To which genre, for example, does the band Animal Collective belong? So I can only describe my music with words like "modern."
Grimes has cited the following musicians and bands as influences: Marilyn Manson, Christina Aguilera, Skinny Puppy, Nine Inch Nails, Cocteau Twins, How to Dress Well, Swans, Dizzee Rascal, Dandi Wind, Beyoncé, Mariah Carey, Enya, TLC, Aphex Twin, Outkast, Jedi Mind Tricks, Dungeon Family, Drake, Miharu Koshi, Aqua, Hildegard von Bingen, Tool, Burial, Brandy, and Lana Del Rey, as well as K-pop, medieval music, and industrial artists.[citation needed] She also considers Los Angeles singer and rapper Brooke Candy "a very contemporary muse".[citation needed]
Art[]
Grimes is also a self-taught visual artist whose work is most famously seen on her album covers, which, up until Miss Anthropocene, has been created entirely by herself. Her art is influenced by Japanese anime, manga, and comic artists such as Charles Burns and Daniel Clowes. Mimi Wong of ABC News says: "In fact, Boucher only started developing her fine art techniques because she wanted to mimic the drawing styles of anime and manga like the Sailor Moon series that became popular in the United States in the 90s".[125]
March of the Pugs Tour (with HANA, Tei Shi, Christine and the Queens) (2016)
Opening act[]
Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes Tour (2011)
Diplo and Skrillex - Full Flex Express Canadian Train Tour (2012)
Lana Del Rey – The Endless Summer Tour (2015)
Florence + The Machine – How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful Tour (2016)
Swedish House Mafia - Paradise Again Tour (2022)
Biography[]
Boucher was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia[126], to parents Maurice Boucher and Sandra Garrosino.[127] She comes from primarly French-Canadian, English, and German ethnic backgrounds.[127]
When Grimes was nine she took a "disastrous" year of violin lessons.[128] She graduated from Lord Byng Secondary School[129] in 2006 and had studied ballet for 11 years,[130] but stopped due to bullying:[131]
❝ I think at some point in grade eight, I started smoking pot. I was just listening to System of a Down. I would show up to ballet, and all the kids would make fun of me, and no matter where I went everyone thought I was insane, so I was just, like, "I cannot be here. I have to do something so I cannot be forced to do this anymore." ❞
When she was in high school she was accused of throwing a snow ball at the Queen, calling it "her favourite memory" in an interview with Dazed:[132]
❝ She was driving through Vancouver for some reason. It was a snow day and everyone was outside. The teachers were like, "If anyone throws a snowball, the consequences will be huge". Everyone was obviously so amped up, waiting to see if anyone would do it. The Queen drove by and nothing happened. There was this big sigh of relief. Then this single snowball sailed through the air and hit the back of her car. Everyone erupted. It was like a madhouse. I was accused because I was a goth but I didn't throw it. ❞
However, weather history shows there was no snow on October 7, 2002, in Vancouver, the date the Queen visited the city (and when Claire would attend school, on monday), which means that the details of the story are wrong.[133][134]
Boucher's high school yearbook quote was by Stalin, this has been misinterpreted over the years, but in 2021 she explained in a TikTok video:[135]
❝ I’m sure many of you guys have noticed the online narrative that I used to be an avowed communist and I have betrayed the comrades. When I started at my high school, it was covered in beautiful murals, but it was kind of a crazy high school, lots of drug use and stuff and admittedly I got into a lot of trouble there. When I was in grade 11 or something, we got this new principal who painted over all the murals gray, and they actually went through and expelled all the worst students to try to sort of bring the GPA up. And a lot of those people were my best friends. Most of my best friends got expelled from high school during that time. I don’t know if people know this about me, but a lot of those people actually ended up dying from drug-related causes or mental health-related causes and this is one of the big traumas of my life, actually. I’ve lost a lot of my best friends. So this quote was not an endorsement of Communism; it was actually a reference, I was making a dark joke comparing my school to the Soviet Union under Jospeh Stalin, that the freedom of creativity was being oppressed and people were being sent to the gulag for not conforming. Stalin murdered millions of people in the gulags and in World War II and I think there actually are redeeming qualities about Communism, but Stalin is not one of them. ❞
In 2006, at the age of 18, she moved to Montréal, Quebec, to attend McGill University to study neuroscience,[136], more specifically, electroacoustics (with a minor in Russian literature) as part of a general Arts and Science degree.[137][citation needed] During her studies, she began to record and perform under the name Grimes, taking the name from grime music after discovering the existence of the genre on MySpace.[138] However, as Grimes became a more serious endeavour for her, she began to miss a large number of classes, and began only attending to take exams, resulting in the university taking punitive actions against her and ultimately expelling her[139] by the summer of her junior year. She told SPIN:[140]
❝ I wanted to go into research. I was into astrophysics and astronomy, but I wasn’t good enough at math and calculus to maintain that, so I got into neuroscience and psychology. Then it became clear that there were too many hoops to jump through. There was a period where two of my best friends died within a six-month period, both in traumatic ways. I thought, "If I’m not enjoying my life all the time, then what’s the point? I don’t know how long I’m going to live." I decided to only do things that I liked doing, even if it meant being really poor. When you’re desperate, you’re going to work hard at something and not give a shit about anything else. ❞
In Montréal she began putting on concerts with her friends at Lab Synthèse, a performance space they started, which was located in an abandoned textile factory that Arbutus Records evolved out of.[141] Two of her songs were released (under her real name, Claire Boucher) on Arbutus Records' Spring 2009 Sampler.[142]
Additional notes[]
Boucher has two brothers and two step-brothers. One of the step-brothers is professionally known as Jay Worthy - a rapper, who has collaborated with Boucher to create the songs "Christmas Song" and "Christmas Song II (grinch)". The former was included as a track on the Rough Trade bonus disc of her album Visions, while the latter has seen no official release, being made just for fun.[143] Her brother Mac, on the other hand, has been for most of her career her creative co-director, editing and working in behind the scenes for music videos such as "Go", "REALiTi", "Flesh without Blood/Life in the Vivid Dream", "Kill V. Maim", "Venus Fly", "We Appreciate Power", and "Violence".
Boucher has numerous tattoos, many of which she has done herself or with her friends, while others have been done by professional tattoo artists.
In June 2009, Grimes and William Gratz, her university friend, set course down the Missisipi River from north Minneapolis in a self-crafted floating house called "Velvet Glove Cast in Iron", in a downriver journey for New Orleans.[144]
Grimes recalled the incident in 2015, and claimed most of the details were "wildly blown out of proportion":[131]
❝ We did actually have chickens, but we gave them away because it’s not nice to bring chickens on a boat. And then we had some ducks, but they escaped. Ach! I shouldn’t say this. We didn’t have a typewriter, and we weren’t trying to do Huck Finn. The main thing that’s true is the potatoes. We had lots of sacks of potatoes, but that’s not that weird. ❞
❝ Basically, my friend [William Gratz] who knows everything about motors and me built a boat out of garbage that was fully licensed, we knew, like, I don't know, like, we were, there was nothing that we were doing wrong, we were following the rules in every way, we did everything by the books and we, like, we're actually just doing a really safe, like, kind of trip down the Missisipi, except that our boat was built of garbage, which was, like, a bit of an issue, I think, but the cops fucking woke us up at six in the morning by smashing all the windows on our boat and showering us in glass, arresting us, taking my passport and pounding our boat, and basically just, like, verbally abusing us and, like, totally fuck us and then the story comes out that's like: "We were just protecting them." and all this stuff, like: "College kids don't know what they're doing." (..) ❞
Boucher has stated that she is a vegetarian unless she deems it inconvenient for others to cater to her nutritional needs.[146]
Boucher has been associated with drug use. While that was true in the past, especially with the making of Visions,[147] she does not use hard substances, citing her hatred of them as they have caused the deaths of many of her friends.[148] She told Dazed in 2015:[149]
❝ I wouldn't want to be responsible for anyone taking drugs as an important part of being creative, or feel that it's necessary, because it's not. Sometimes I play shows and there are a bunch of 15-year-olds in the audience with their parents and I'm like, "I can't continue to romanticise this in public." [..] I think it's good to be a little transparent. [About narcotics previously playing a part in kick-starting her creative process.] It's the truth. If anything, I actually feel really proud that I've gotten to a lot healthier place in my life. You can either keep being a dick and f***ing around with your health, or you can get healthy because you need to play shows every day and it's really hard. I think it's good that there's an obvious trajectory. You can look at pictures of me from two years ago and I look so much less healthy than I do now. I'm not trying to pretend that anything didn't happen. ❞
On May 17th, 2018, Boucher announced that she would be changing her name to c (lowercase and in italic)[150] as a reference to the speed of light in a vacuum, a universal constant, because her birth name, Claire, had been "the bane of [her] existence since [she] became sentient"[151] and that she was trying to change it 'forever',[152] and because her friends were already calling her 'c' as a nickname.[153]
Boucher has a lisp and she has no intention to fix it.[154] in 2023 she was diagnosed with autism after initially being misdiagnosed with restless legs syndrome and schizoaffective disorder.[155]
Grimes has had two facial surgeries. One was in 2019, when she got an upper lip lift and lip filler,[156][157] while in 2022 her face received a ponytail lift by Dr. Chia Chi Kao,[158][159][160] as well as replacement lip fillers and a revision to the upper lip lift.[speculated]
Boucher has had three notable relationships during her life. One was with Devon Welsh, another Canadian musician that she met while attending McGill university. Another was with Jamie Brooks. The most famous of all was with the tech entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk. They met in early 2018 after discovering on Twitter that they both came up with the same pun relating to Rococo and the thought experiment Roko's basilisk.[161][162] They had been in an off-and-on relationship until 2022, when they 'split up',[163] though they nevertheless retained positive affection for each other until autumn of 2023, when Elon Musk sued Grimes to "establish the parent-child relationship" after Grimes publicly plead to let her see her kids, whom Musk is in control over.[164][165] They are embroiled in a legal struggle regarding primary custody rights of their children, which has been going on since.[164][166]
Boucher has three children with Elon Musk, and has expressed the desire to keep them out of the public eye.[citation needed] Her first son X Æ A-XII[167] (referred to more commonly as X) was born on May 4, 2020,[168][169] after a traumatic birth which lead the couple to use a surrogate for their daughter Exa Dark Sideræl (nicknamed Y), born in December 2021.[170] In 2023 it was revealed the couple had a third child, a second son, Techno Mechanius (nicknamed Tau (τ)).[171] In the biography Elon Musk, it was published that Tau was born in June 2022 via surrogate in the week of Fathers Day.[172] Boucher has explained the meaning behind X and Exa's names, telling Vanity Fair she is "prepared" for Exa to dislike her name, as she dislikes her own, and would help her pick a new one.[173]c has a tattoo of her three children's names in the fictional language Marain, created by Iain M Banks.
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