FKA Twigs covers the new issue of Complex. You can read her full interview here – I always forget, until those rare occasions when I go on Complex’s site, how annoying that site is. What could have been a pretty straight-forward cover interview is stretched out with endless scrolling past weird moving images of Twigs and more scrolling of dead space and on and on. That being said, this was one of the better interviews I’ve read with Twigs, even if the quotes seem kind of lukewarm. At times she comes across as sort of stuck up her own ass, not really pretentious but more of, like, the kind of fart-sniffing artist that can’t see the forest for the trees. Some highlights:

She went to Croydon College to study philosophy and sociology: “I was banned from two classes for asking too many questions.”

She was raised on the classics: “I went in the opposite direction. I liked punk music. I gave up ballet. I rejected the training I’d had.”

The racism she’s gotten from online trolls: “I wouldn’t say I’m completely numb to it now, but there’s definitely a numbness there.”

Dealing with inane press questions: “If this is what being an artist is, I’m just not really sure this is for me. This”—the press cycle— “is horrific. I could be doing dance class right now.”

On T-Pain telling the world that she & Sparkles are engaged: “I’d rather not talk about it,” she responds, when I ask about the news being broken in this context. Her response isn’t angry, or impatient, but genuinely sad. Has she confronted the situation? “Umm,” she says before looking away, then staring back at me. “It’s fine, I’m a pretty chill person, do you know what I mean?” she continues, before finishing, “If you can’t touch it, it’s not real.”

The Twihards trolling her online: “It is pretty horrible. But ultimately, I’m in an amazing relationship. So it doesn’t matter.”

Voguing is really important: “Voguing has helped me grow into the best young lady that I can be at this time. Through these boys”—the dancers—“I’ve learned to embrace parts of my femininity that I wasn’t in touch with before.”

Everything worked out: “I haven’t had an easy life at all, but everything seems to be working out. I’m so grateful for that, because at times, especially when I was a teenager, I just couldn’t see how things could ever get better, or how I’d ever be able to do this. I don’t know what I thought I’d be doing. I’d always worked hard at music and at dancing, but I never thought I’d get the opportunity to be doing this, and have the belief of people to give me a budget to make a video. These things are incredible.”

[From Complex]

In this interview, she also says that she adopted a sort of alter ego (but not really) called “Melissa.” She tries to make it sound like she did not go all Sasha Fierce, like she just had Melissa to separate herself as an artist and the real Twigs. What else? Oh, Robert Pattinson makes a brief appearance during the LA leg of this interview. The journalist goes to their house and Rob opens the door. So… yeah, it’s happening. It’s for real. Sorry, Twihards.

Photos courtesy of Matt Irwin/Ignasi Moneal/Complex.