SZA Says She Was Seen As “F—ing Weird” And A “Diabolical Freak” Growing Up
If you ever thought SZA’s lyrics felt like spells, you’re not wrong. In a new conversation with singer Chappell Roan for Interview Magazine, the Grammy-winning Kill Bill singer opened up about her mystical childhood, her love affair with water, and how being the “weird girl” growing up turned out to be her greatest gift.
SZA, 35, didn’t just play pretend like other kids. She lived in a world of Xena, Hercules, Buffy — and Akashic records. “I was a freakazoid,” she said with no shame. “I struggled to find friends because I’d just be talking about all this mystical s—, but it’s also from watching a lot of Xena[:Warrior Princess] and Hercules[: The Legendary Journeys] and Buffy [the Vampire Slayer].” By age 7, she wasn’t playing house — she was trying to call on Akasha and getting side-eyes from other kids.
Turns out, her curiosity didn’t stop at fantasy. She literally had a filing system for secrets. “I used to collect little secrets and clues about everybody’s life that they weren’t saying out loud and then keep them in manila folders in a filing cabinet,” she confessed. One folder? It held a business card for a strip club she found in her dad’s coat. She never told him. “It was literally just because I was being a diabolical freak.”
And no, this wasn’t inspired by Harriet the Spy. This was pre-Harriet. “…Once I saw Harriet the Spy, I’m like, ‘Oh, this is full justification that this is normal.’”
As for magic, she still believes in it — just not in the wand-waving kind. “Water is alive. It’s a conscious, sentient force,” she explained. “It holds memory.” She even said she talks to the ocean, gives it cake, and listens for answers. In her words: “I go to the ocean all the time and I laugh and eat cakes and brownies and then give them to her. I’m not even kidding.”
The real magic, though? SZA’s self-acceptance. As a teen, she wasn’t just bullied — she was misunderstood. “I wasn’t quiet and I was awkward at the same time,” she told PEOPLE last year, adding, “I wasn’t this tiny sad victim, but I was more so attacked just because it was giving ‘What is wrong with you?’ energy.”
But now? The same traits that made her feel like an outsider are her secret superpowers. As she stated; “I realized that all the things that made me feel so lame were actually what made me into who I am.”
Her message to other weird kids out there? “If you could hold on and just wait until high school is over because 10 years from now, I promise you, none of those people will matter.”
