Last December, SZA released SOS, her highly anticipated sophomore album that wildly outperformed her expectations, spending 10 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. She’s in the headlines this December as well.
This week, SZA teased Lana, which has been billed as the deluxe version of SOS. She also sat down with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe to reflect on the past year.
Just over 26 minutes into the 52-minute conversation, SZA said something that caused fans to do a double-take. She explained that she “was never quite certain” about her viability as an artist, and she “really only did music to prove a point.” Lowe asked to whom she wanted to prove a point. SZA said, “When I started making music, it was to my ex-fiancé because he was paying for everything. My food, my clothes, where I lived, and he was eight years my senior, so I was so co-dependent.”
SZA tells Zane Lowe she first started making music to prove a point to her ex-fiancé:
“It was because he was paying for everything. My food, my clothes, where I lived…I was so co-dependent, and he was so talented. His ex girlfriends were all lawyers, business women and… https://t.co/2G1rvlpEqN
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) December 13, 2023
Time out. Ex-fiancé? SZA keeps her private life private, so some people were surprised to hear that she had previously been engaged, though she also briefly mentioned him to Rolling Stone earlier this year.
“When we talk, she doesn’t divulge her ex-fiancé’s identity, though she describes him as a fashion designer who doesn’t post on social media,” Rolling Stone‘s Mankaprr Conteh wrote in October. “They became unengaged five or six years ago, she says, having been together for a total of 11 years and engaged for five. I do some quick maths and conclude that they must have started dating around the time she was in high school. ‘I was fresh from high school,’ she concurs.”
SZA hasn’t publicly offered up much detail about ex-fiancé — and it doesn’t seem like she plans to — but she damn sure wouldn’t tell us if she’s ever been married. Based on everything we do know, though, it would seem that she has never been married. She did give Conteh insight into her mindset toward relationships moving forward, as excerpted below:
“Having spent her youth ‘around a n***a, up under a n***a, trying to get up under a n***a, like, needing that constant validation, companionship, like scared to be by myself and sh*t,’ she’s now concerned she won’t settle into another relationship while she’s in her prime, as if when she’s older she won’t still be the incredible beauty she is now.
‘I feel like I have more to offer than the way I look and my energy, but it’s like, I’m human, that sh*t is all-encompassing,’ she reasons. ‘I want to stunt like me when I meet the person I envision me being with. I envision them falling in love with me the way I am. But I guess it’s like I have to release that idea. Maybe it’s because I don’t know if I’ll like the way I am later?’”