The Life Of Bryony - We’re Taught to Shrink Ourselves to Fit a Patriarchal World: Paris Paloma on Using Music to Call Out the Physical and Emotional Cost of the Patriarchy

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

My guest this week is my new musical obsession, Paris Paloma – an artist whose songs about diet culture, ageism, mental illness and toxic beauty standards have racked up hundreds of millions of streams around the world. Paris writes blisteringly honest music about what it means to live as a woman under patriarchy, and why so many of us are taught to shrink ourselves just to survive. We talk about the viral success of “Labour” and the messages she gets from listeners who say her work has transformed the way they see themselves and their place in the world. We dig into what it means to be labelled a “political” artist, why nothing is truly apolitical, and how patriarchy harms men as well as women. Paris also opens up about depression, therapy and the “warring parts” of herself that inspired her song “Hunter”, and why turning pain into art can be a lifeline.ALBUM DETAILS:Paris’ new album, Fatal Flaw is releasing on the 4th September 2026.WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOUGot something to share? Message us on @lifeofbryonypod on Instagram.If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it – it really helps! Bryony xxCREDITS:Host: Bryony GordonGuest: Paris PalomaProducer: Laura Elwood-Craig Assistant Producer: Tippi Willard Studio Manager: Mitchell LiasProduction Manager: Vittoria CecchiniEditor: Luke ShelleyExec Producer: Jamie East A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everyone. Now today's guest is my new musical obsession. And as regular listeners of the life of Brian Eno, it takes a lot to upend my love of both Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny. But today's guest has done it. She sings about diet culture, ageism, mental illness and toxic beauty standards. And her songs are so powerful they've had over a billion streams. Her name is Paris Paloma. and today I am absolutely cocker hoop to be her first ever podcast interview. Your choices aren't made in the vacuum. Your choices are made by like every single input that you've had since birth in a society that is like incredibly patriarchal.

You know, the two songs are good boy and good girl. There's a reason for that because I was thinking, what does it look like when women are self-policing and doing patriarchy's work for them? What does it look like when men are self-policing and doing patriarchy's work for them? One of the most, like, widespread ways that women do that is through the body, is through, like, policing your body and shrinking yourself and making yourself conform. My chat with Paris coming up after this. Paris Paloma, welcome to the life of Brienne.

Thank you so much for having me. I am just, I just want to start by Fangirling and telling you how grateful, A, I am that you, that you as this incredibly cool person has come on my podcast, but B, that you exist because when I was, I mean, I've got like a good couple of decades on you, Paris. You're 40, you're 45, you're 26. I'm 26. Okay.

When I was your age and younger, the female musicians that we listened to or that were out there were very much singing through the male gaze. It was always about romance and getting the man and looking sexy. And I guess I'm just so grateful that my daughter, who will be 13 next week, can listen to women like you, you know, and that you exist and that there now is a space and a place and an appetite for this kind of stuff. That's what I wanted to start by saying.

That's so nice. I mean, I feel like I don't. know. That makes me feel so happy. I also, I write about the things that I write about because it's genuinely just like my life and the things that concern me and the things that move me enough to write about them. Do you know what I mean? It's like sort of, I didn't kind of set out to write about big, like important topics. And it's like I do like, I also, yeah, I remember being like quite young and having these sort of dreams of being like a singer. And I actually vividly remember being like, I don't, writing about romance doesn't really interest me.

It kind of does now, like as in I have written love songs and I really enjoy that, but then I feel like I don't ever want that to be from the perspective of, yeah, just like the pursuit of this like male gaze, you know what I mean? And I just, I'm glad that my music resonates with people for that reason and with a lot of women and a lot of girls for that reason. That makes me very proud. Yeah. So your songs are about, I mean, the one that I guess, when I say,

broke you, that makes it sound like it broke, like, the one that kind of launched you into everyone's kind of consciousness was labour, which, how many billions of streams has this had now? I don't know. I don't, I actually don't know. I think it's, I would love for someone to tell me, but I don't really keep track. I think it's at like several million like streams on like Spotify and YouTube and things like that which is great that's insane that's a number that I can't comprehend obviously I'm not very good at numbers but yeah

I sort of more feel it in terms of I don't know I get a lot of messages I get a lot of DMs of people for whom it's shaped their experience and confidence I get a lot of messages from women talking about how it's helped them leave like abusive partners it's helped them leave like exploitative marriages and like young girls for whom it's like shaping their like experience and their voice and

their confidence and God I would like as in I didn't have that like I was a very like when you talk about singing through the male gays like I'm not exempt from that that's how I grew up that's how I yeah had had this worldview and it's like men and boys were so important yeah and what were you listening to when you were growing up? What was I listening to? I was listening to. I was listening to. I actually had just a really weird music upbringing. I just remember listening to like Nickelback like in my dad's car.

Like and my mum raised me on like a lot of Motown and a lot of jazz and a lot of funk. And but then when I was, when I sort of like found my own music and I listened to it in my room, like Ed Shear and I listened to a lot of and I think I found that really refreshing because it didn't feel it felt narratively really like rich.

You know what I mean? It felt like important to me and accessible. as well. But like looking back at that song 18, that was, you know, that was like a heavy song. Yeah. Like, lovely little tinkly. I didn't know what it was about and I was like 12. But like as in you get the sense. Well, I think I did. But as in it's sort of like you don't like relate to that as like a. Even at 12 you didn't know that it was about a girl with a cocaine addiction. No. I thought she was in like a like when he said in her pipe she flies to the motherland. I imagine one of those Mario brothers pipes that they like come out of. Yeah. Yeah. I love

though but I love that he created a song whereby a 12 year old could could could get that a very sheltered like rural 12 year olds sort of really resonated with me um yeah but I really enjoyed it I don't know it's I was listening to like a lot of songwriting loved loved a bit of like girls allowed and spice girls um and yeah I I sort of just had like a very normal like upbringing I wasn't and then I sort of, in my teens, I kind of became like a sort of like baby raging feminist through like feminist art and like my, like, because I studied history of art and fine art and things like that and a lot of like female performance art and painters and artists and sculptors like Judea Chicago and Marina Abramovic and yeah, I, that was my entryway, really.

And then I sort of, it became like, I couldn't really ignore it. I think people, like, I get told I'm like a political artist, but it's quite funny. I don't sort of, I didn't set out, I'm not apolitical. I'm very political, but then I think everyone is, and I don't think anything's apolitical. So that's just my worldview. Like, I think in calling me a political artist,

it's like labelling political as like something other, when it's like everyone is really, they're just deciding what they're saying, you know? Can I tell you what I, I'm really lucky that I've got to listen to your new album, which is called Faceleful, And we'll talk a little bit about that in a moment. But so when I was listening to it this weekend, I was thinking to myself, okay, so this is just what music does for me.

And I am like a Class A lunatic, okay? And that's kind of the point of the podcast. But while I was listening to your album, I felt just so fucking full of feminine power. I felt so in my fucking cups. And I felt, I could just, I just felt myself like, in my fantasies, just as I was listening, rising to the top, you know? Like, just get these fuckers out my way. I'm coming through. That's the vibe I get from your music.

In my fucking cups, I'm going to use that. Yeah, that can be your next album. Thank you. In my fucking cups. So one of the tracks on the album is Good Girl, which has already come out. and I wanted to talk to you. I'm wearing. Okay, heaven is a fed girl.

Discuss. I just, it was genuinely like good girl as comprised of sort of, the chorus is like, kind of a series of like manifestations or like affirmations really that I would like say to myself when I, um,

felt like I wanted to succumb to being like, you know that urge that you get to like be like, uh, when you feel vulnerable and you're like, I need to be smaller and that'll be happy. I need to be smaller and inoffensive and like palatable and tiny little, tiny little person that can be like picked up and isn't like obnoxious and loud and annoying.

Pretty. Pretty dainty little like tiny, oh what, me like, oh my God. You know, that's, I, I was, I'm so exhausted by that feeling. I, you know, I'm just like anyone else and often feel that urge, that instinctive urge when I get like anxious, when I feel self-conscious, like when I, just because I wrote that song, it does not mean that I am above feeling those things.

And I was so tired of it. And I have these things in my head that I say, one of them would be having as a fed girl that just sort of started being something that I would tell myself if I ever wanted to deprive my body. Another is somebody's got to because I was really sick. and am, because also I feel like this conversation has continued since I've released a good girl. I am really sick of seeing like this tidal wave of like trending body types that are incredibly unhealthy

in like the media, in property culture, in like lots of very famous women around the world. And I feel like I'm tired of choice feminism where it's kind of like, every decision that everyone makes is empowered and feminist because that's her choice. And it's like actually there are lots of really damaging decisions that a lot of women can make, especially if they're public figures

and have a lot of like young girls looking up at them. So for me now, I feel like if I don't try really hard, to make sure I have a healthy relationship with my body, that would have an impact on a lot of young girls who are looking at me and I take that responsibility really seriously. Yeah, and I think it's really rough. You know, without naming names, there's like multiple instances recently where I've seen like very, very famous, like, you know, very beautiful women

in like an active state of malnutrition, like, which is being looked at by girls everywhere. Things like the rise in Ozambic, the rise in just like... Shrinking yourself. Yeah, just shrinking yourself. Like, trying to attain this level of beauty that's actually, it's not beauty, it's like this bizarre, like, I am so in control that I can make myself look disemaciated

and this tiny. and it's almost this kind of like, I don't know whether it's because it's like a status symbol, whether it's like, and I don't pretend to know what women like sort of, when it's like Hollywood or in the music industry, and with that degree of fame, I don't pretend to know what their daily life is like

and how difficult that is, and therefore they are maybe trying to achieve some level of control, whether it's through eating or working out or whatever. But like the truth is that that is part of like culture. and even with individuals kind of sort of succumbing to that, they are participating in this changing culture where we are now seeing like sort of skininess pushed everywhere. And it's related to like the landscape of patriarchy right now.

It's related to like the political landscape at the moment. The other thing, and I've really noticed it. And this stuff that I find this, I think this stuff is really important. And I've done a lot of work on myself to define my, myself, not by the way I look, but who I am as a person. And that's really crucial, right? And it makes me so angry because when we're talking about people's women's bodies, we're, we're just, like you say, we're distracted, we're not, we're not looking, you know, we're looking at each other. What are we fucking doing? Do you mean? Like, I just, I don't want to spend a single more second of

my life, like, talking about my body. And I do. Like, I'm not, I'm not on a soapbox, like as in I don't want to spend like money and time putting it into this when like it's so it's so obtuse and the goalposts change and it's all for nothing really because like we've seen it time and time again like the body image is made into like passing trends by like culture by like big companies that would like you to spend a lot of money on like on makeup and procedures and I was epic and I don't know I'm exhausted and I also think

that's sort of a big part of the song another part of the song is that like where patriarchy comes into this where a lot of men seem to think that it's like for them do you know what I mean and it's like I'm not

I get comments insulting my appearance insulting like my audience's appearance I get I got I get comments being like, my body fluctuates, I get comments like, I thought she was skinnier, I used to think she was skinnier, like, and it's from men who sort of like are very affronted when you are not like performing like physically to their beauty standards. And I don't like, I don't care. I really don't care. I just like, please just leave me alone and stop applying

meaning to my body all the time because then that's what feeds into this culture where like, all women have to be putting on this like physical performance you know um i i would just love for us to be neutral about it and just not care not like it's so interesting the other day i was um talking about this with someone with a man lovely guy not part of the patriarchy would definitely describe himself as a feminist and there was some survey that had come out about it was like the more thin models or whatever on the catwalk and he said to me, yeah, but the thing is as well is that men prefer women with a bit of, you know, I wish women knew that we prefer them a bit curfier.

And I was like, I really don't give a shit what you prefer. You know what, what phrase I hate and makes me, makes my skin crawl, love handles. It makes me see red. It makes me, like, want to, like, rage in some kind of, like, Darwinian way. Like, because I feel like, I, I, when I was, like, little, I was a slightly bigger girl. and I heard all the time that that's what boys prefer. And so then I think inadvertently I felt like the redeeming quality of being a little bit bigger was sexualisation.

And so then it kind of created this panic in me where it's like, but I don't want boys looking at me in that way. I don't want to be the thing that they actually desire more. Do you know what I mean? I just want to be like... You just want to be you? An animal just like in my body, just actually experiencing the world

and not being looked at all the time. Well, that can I talk to you about this? I mean, this is a song from your last album, Cacophony. Really powerful, powerful song called Last Woman on Earth, which is, and there's this lyric in it, which is I wouldn't wish the watching on anybody. And that absolutely speaks to what you've just discussed there.

right? Yeah. The last one on earth, it's a really tricky one. I don't sing it live because I find it too difficult now. Really? I just,

I think sometimes you look back on something and you're like, hmm, was that, would I have released that now with the number of people who were consuming that now? And I wonder if maybe I didn't

because I wrote that when I had a much smaller audience. And I think it's so, it's really cathartic, it's really like, it's dark. There was a point where I said to my team, I was like,

I'm not so sure about having this on the album because it feels like, you know, Labor had happened and then suddenly I had like a ton. And I wrote that before Labor came out. Like, and I had a ton more people anyway. But like, it's a tricky one. And I wrote that line, but the whole song is basically trying to appeal desperately to kind of like a male peer or like a male like well-meaning ally to try and get them to believe like how bad it is. Do you know what I mean?

And I think that's part of what I find so exhaust. is that like you're contending with like sexist all the time especially in my job I get tidal waves of it and but then it's it's exhausting not not even having like very well-meaning like male allies believe you immediately do know what I mean and I'm lucky that I have a lot of men in my life who do and who I love and who see it and but that line in particular is like you know where you're sort of like um imagine if it was your sister if it was your mother or something like that and it's like actually like what like if you care about a woman like I wouldn't even wish what you're it like you watching it on anyone because that's horrific enough let alone experiencing it

it and it's kind of like part of the song almost like panders to that in order to try and get like like men to care but then but then it's kind of got this double meaning in the sense that it's like this being watched all the time this feeling like you can't move through the world without things like without getting snagged on on things and in the way that men can and just pass through like um sort of anonymously Yeah. So when you say you've got, you get tidal waves of presumably people online sort of saying, just putting their thoughts out there. How do you deal with that? And what kind of things do you, I mean, do you not read it or? I've sort of stopped reading it, which is tricky when I need to, like, social media is such a huge part of my job. But yeah, I've stopped, I've stopped engaging with it. I'm trying to kick the whole. like phone habit anyway. Really? Yeah. I just

God it's time, isn't it? And it's just bad for my brain. So how are you doing that? I'm trying to be bored. Like I'm actually not doing it in the sense of like... Is this coming on this podcast? Can do, yeah. Part of that strategy.

Yeah. I'm trying to be bored so I came, you're welcome. I'm trying to and instead of just not going on my phone, I'm trying to do active thing of like i'm going to sit in silence do you know i mean like instead of distracting yourself in any way yeah like and um just get comfortable and that's hard when when you're doing less mentally well it's really hard to i mean we're talking about it with like oCD but like it's it's

it's hard to not desperately need to like distract yourself to like stop thoughts coming but i'm trying to basically just occupy myself like in my own brain and not need like the dopamine here but also i've been thinking about it so much because of that landmark case that just happened with like YouTube and meta and being held responsible for depression but like but then sort of working on social media is a huge part of that and I get yeah like swathes of comments and that I mean it's awful it's all also like um they're not very clever and they're not very uh I don't give a lot of weight to them because it is just it it makes me really sad because I think I I went to an all-girls school I have a lot of women in my life like a lot of

of the men in my life are like really wonderful allies. I don't actually come into like, like contact with a lot of, with a lot of like uninformed sexist boys and men, apart of them on the internet. And it makes me sad because I'm like, oh my God, like, it's really bad. Like, and it'll be like little boys, like, sending like rape threats and stuff like that. Do you know what I mean? You're going on a profile and it's just like they look like a baby.

And or like grown men sort of, yeah. Yeah, but they're all not, like, they're not well-informed comments, but it's the frustration of being like, oh, my God. And that's why I wrote Good Boy, because I was like, oh, my God, you could be so much happier if you weren't, like, a misogynist. I've got, I've got so many, can I just, okay, because Good Boy is, like, again, this is a great. So this is a really ADHD conversation that we're just having right now.

We're just going to go with it, maybe. We're just going to go with it. Okay, so when I listen to Good Boy, so it starts with Emma Thompson, saying that thing. It's like I always knew that powerful men would burn the world down. I just didn't expect them to be such losers. And that's their headline from Rebecca Shaw's article in The Guardian of View, like last year. Yeah.

So when I listened to that, I'm like, how does she do this? Okay, because I went and like Googled the full lyrics. Okay, so is it okay if I'm not going to try and sing it, don't work. No, no, no, no, it's all right. because I was like, wow, this is magic. Okay, so this lyric, I have never seen submission embodied half so well, as in the feeble competition between men with souls to sell. And I've never seen a gar dog with less fearsome of a bite

than with its tail between its legs found at the rich man's side. Look at him, he's sweating, he's sweating from the climb, office worker, soldier, CEO, he's bleeding and he's blind. And I've never seen a creature more pitiful than him. he drinks power like salt water all because he cannot swim. Can we just have a moment? How do you do that? And then you make it like melodic.

Like how the fuck do you do that, Paris? It's just really fun. I really enjoy it. I've made it into a job that's nice. Well, well, well done. But I mean, it's so impressive. I was like, oh, injects this into my veins. I just got so pissed off.

And I'd actually been in like a writing slump for a while, I think I'd not written anything. And that was the first thing I'd written in like a couple months. It was during that whole pathetic like grab for power in like the Oval Office when we were watching kind of like all the tech oligarchs like on the front road during Trump's inauguration. Yeah. And and it was that song is about two people, two kinds of people. It's about those like kind of pathetic loser, like oligarchs who like have all the money in the world and they can't buy a. sense of humour they can't buy like um class and respect and coolness um because they just don't they kind of they they they sold their soul and that's that's that and um it's then about these these

these boys these men who blindly defend these like billionaires these these Elon musks and mark Zuckerbergs and um and they blindly defend it and i'm just like what do you what do you get out of that. You're not getting anything. Like, and they're making themselves into, like, the foot soldiers. I think those men that don't give a shit about them. Yeah. Like, he's not going to, he's not going to reward you for that. Like, he's not going to pop out of the ground and be like, thanks. Hi, I'm Elon Musk. Thank you, Chad, for that comment you left on Paris Plumers Post.

Here's a million pounds. And I just, it's funny, and that's why the song is very satirical. Like, but it's also really sad. I, you know, it's nice that it, it kind of, there was a conversation around it. I got a lot of like messages from like male allies, from fathers, from brothers and stuff. And I got a lot of positive feedback from men about it, which was really lovely. And I just sort of, I kind of wanted to position it as like, you're, if you're just this figure of pathos, if you're doing that, you're just allowing like patriarchy to just decimate you, like emotionally.

like, you know, Bell Hooks, it says, like, the first act of violence that patriarchy requires men to commit is against themselves and just, like, cutting parts out of themselves so that they can, like, try desperately to fulfill this ideal of, like, toxic masculinity. And then, and then beyond that, you're just, you're, like, shouting down people who believe in something, like, women who are trying to make a difference. For what? For what? Like, as in, and that's, that's sort of why I wrote the song. And it's very, um, It's not very concise. Like it's really just like a stream of consciousness trying to talk to. It's a lot of my songs when you just look at it are like, you know, when you have an argument with someone and then you're in the shower thinking about everything that you should have said.

And you're like talking to the imaginary person. That's kind of what it is. I love that. Because I'm in reality, you're not actually going to be able to have that conversation with those like men or boys who are just kind of. of slaving away in the comments for, for, like, men who are never going to know them and who are also losers. Yeah.

But they are. Oh, my God. They are. Like, you know, get, like, get grok to, like, roast my friend at this party. Wow, what a fun time, Elon, Jesus Christ. Thank you for, thank you for using your immense wealth for this purpose. Yeah, it's really, it's really improved the world. I'm so glad that we have, uh, yeah, like,

AI engine that is that you know can be used to that can undress women and children and also like also like expose how much of a lose you are at like parties that's really what I hope to come of like the advancing technology in this world well you have you have written

again she's she's written a song about AI everyone but can I I wanted to talk this is a podcast where we talk a lot about feelings about experiences, not always good experiences, but we do it because we want to make other people feel better who've also gone through them. And one of your songs from cacophony is Hunter. And when I listen to that, I really get the sense of it being about, I feel like it's like a sort of

song about living with mental illness kind of. Yeah, totally. Is that what it's about? It really is. Not to get to like English GCSC on your ass. I actually love it when people do that. I like, when I see someone coming out with my lyrics and like highlight it, so I'm like, fuck yeah. I've written an essay on your song, Hunter. I get put in a lot of academic papers. I get a lot of DMs about that. And it makes me feel like we've got little glasses on.

Yeah, I've never been put in an academic paper. No one has ever, ever used me in an academic paper. Okay, so can I talk to you about Hunter? I really, I wrote it about sort of like a period of, like, a period of, like mental illness that I was in, which is also like not linear. I continue to sort of, I'm in therapy, I have a wonderful therapist and work through lots of things. Sort of that was in particular like a period of like depression. I'd been through a time where I was really kind of like not in love with life and there was a lot of darkness in my head

and ideation about, you know, certain things. And Hunter is kind of about coming out of that period, really about the warring parts of myself, and kind of the feeling of shame that you get when you kind of, you start getting better enough to realize how little you cared about yourself and what contempt you were treating your life with. And that's like a great deal of it.

And it's a song about, you know, this hunter and this animal. seeing each other and even though it would have sort of like the done thing would have been to kill the other they don't and then they kind of reconcile in this fairy tale almost and that it was it was quite cathartic for me to write it was sort of like okay I'm not going to be my worst enemy anymore like I'm not going to be the person who just hates myself the most out of anyone in the world anymore. And I had been for like a long time. I used to really struggle with my mental health. I have OCD and that was and is very hard a lot of the time.

Especially like, I don't know, navigating it now with an audience is very strange. And you get a lot of imposter syndrome. There's lots of opportunity for some pretty dark thoughts as well. Like, I feel that OCD works. And I think it's so misunderstood OCD and is often, you know, sort of used as shorthand for being tidy or whatever. It is that pissing me off. Yeah.

Yeah. My husband always said, I wish you had the good type of OCD. And I'm like, fuck off, there is no good type of OCD. But you know what he means is like for someone, you know, I've, I've had. obsessive compulsive disorder since I was about 10 years old and it's manifested in washing my hands obsessively until they bled but the most torturous thing is the intrusive thoughts yeah it's like yeah I mean it's so misunderstood like I have lots of different branches of it and I kind of don't I'm not going to like I don't go into like the intrusive thoughts because I think with OCD when

people do start to understand it it can always become like a spectacle of like how horrible it is like what you're dealing with. But like I think there are people who have started talking about it really well. My friend, Sophie May is so wonderful. She had a song called Tiny Dictator. And that was the first time I kind of had heard someone really just put it out in the open of like what it is to just like live day to day with like horrific intrusive thoughts. And I struggled with that awfully for like a majority of my teens.

And it is the most isolating thing, especially informative years like that. and it came off the back of you know like toxic relationships like you know a bit of like sexual violence and I well thank you but it's like it's not I'm very unfortunately not a unique story like and I people sort of that's kind of also why I reject being called like a political artist it's like I'm writing like about my life and I Yeah, the OCD sort of became really like this overwhelming thing when I was when I was a fair bit younger. As a almost a trauma response to what happens. Yeah, kind of. But then there was, I think there's definitely like, you know, I wonder whether it was like present when I was even younger.

I don't know. I don't kind of, I sort of try and just think about how it's going to help now. And it took a lot of just like brutal like work therapy. EMDR therapy. I have hypnosis tapes. Like there's a lot of like heavy lifting that goes into recovery. And anyway, Hunter was written, was written like kind of in a closing chapter of my mental health where it's like now I experience like flare ups. It's not linear. There are some things which are really hard and look different. I went through a phase where I really struggled like touring for the first time.

I was convinced I was going to get ill. I'd have like injuries of thoughts of like, you know, not being able to perform and it, but it was like almost incapacitating and I just brute forced it. And the time when I did, when I opened main stage for Stevie Nix, a BST, I was in therapy so intensely before that to be able to do that because I was so, I cannot tell you how like stressed I was. And then...

And that manifests in fear that you're not going to be able to show up because you might get sick. It would be like I, when I was touring and when I was doing shows, I would be so scared of getting ill, I would not eat. Like I found it so difficult to. Okay.

And I would be exhausted and I would be doing these shows like just so convinced that I was like I would like lose control of my body or I would like you know I do know yeah and yeah but then that's like and that's kind of like a new a really new fun flavor of I hadn't had to reconcile with like back when I was like you know before before I was doing music and it's like an example of like where I I had like a lot of help I had a lot of support I've got a really great team around me now I'm very thankful to say like now I don't I experience it less as an issue, like, and I really enjoy touring, which is great, but it's, it's exhausting. I find that sometimes

I won't realize that something that is happening in my life is another manifestation of OCD. Yeah. It's quite like, I'm sober and in recovery from alcoholism as well. And we say this, we say this thing about alcoholism, that it's cunning, baffling and powerful, you know, and it's the same with OCD, because I will think, oh, well, I'm not thinking I'm a serial killing paedophile. So I'm not having an OCD episode, but actually what I'm doing is obsessing over whether I've upset someone or whether I've said something. And it can just manifest in so many different ways. It's also this feeling of what OCD I find is like at the crux of a lot of things with OCD is where it's like I'm different. There's something wrong with me specifically and therefore something is going to happen that means I am different.

And I just was like in my head, like when I started. gigging. It's like, I can't do what other artists do, you know, just because I'm different. You know what I mean? And it's, and so I'd be convinced that something was going to happen horribly with me. I've looked at just, other artists didn't. So it's a way of saying I'm the worst. Kind of, yeah. Like it's just, and back when I used to suffer from it like a lot in my teens, when it was a lot of puro, it was a lot of like intrusive thoughts. It was a lot of just thinking like the most like evil things and, and it, it's, it isolated. you so severely because you feel like you can't talk to anyone about it.

Luckily, I had a therapist. And it's this feeling of like being on the other side of glass, like to people who don't deal with it. And being like, I feel like no one, no, I can't even tell people because it's... So shame. It's so shamed. Like, and it's not talked about it very much. I'm very lucky now to be surrounded by, like, a really wonderful team at work.

I have really, like, great friends and loved ones around me and my family are so supportive. But yeah, it is, it is, it's tough and it's not linear and, uh, yeah, I get, I get like flare-ups when I'm very burnt out, um, and when I'm exhausted and when I have a drop in self-esteem and there's a lot of, like, focus on me and it's hard to not just like ruminate, but like, yeah, it's a, it's a big old thing to deal with. And also it's kind of, I suppose, So much of life now is judged on metrics, isn't it? Whether you are a singer, a writer, an accountant or, you know, whatever,

it is now incredibly gamified and like metrics. And so we are all being sort of our value is being judged on whether we're doing well at this or well at that. I feel like for me it's like it's that, but in like a bit of a different way where it's like kind of. of founded in something quite valid which is about I don't know who said this but someone's projected that like when you're a successful woman whether it's in music or whatever you have two years at the top before everyone slates you and I feel like there's a lot of that going around um where I'm like oh it's a matter of time until like everyone turns and like you're just waiting for that moment I don't know I hope that doesn't happen I don't think it will like as in but I I think when

women have like a, I mean I've not have like any kind of meteoric rise but I think there are, there's, yeah, like not on the scale I'm talking about like as in I'm talking about the doches, the chapel roans, the Sabrina Carpenter's, the Charlie XX's you know, like and I think then there does come like a tidal wave of like let's tear this woman down and I feel like it's very convenient that like that there comes to follow some kind of like whether it's council culture or

or whether it is like some kind of misogynistic fuel like witch hunt like is well it's always she's got too big for her boots is kind of yeah like and that's I don't know I feel like I always say to George who's my bassist and he's been playing with me since we were doing pub gigs and so we recently did like the Florence tour and we played arenas for the first time and that was that was a crazy moment when she says the Florence tour she means I mean Florence and the machine yeah she does all my friends keep laughing at me because Florence is wonderful and she sent flowers and they all I had my friends over for a girl's night and they were all teasing me because I had like yeah it's just my friend Florence like she goes to another school you don't know her whatever

she is she is she's so great she's a queen yeah she is so great but I said to I said to George we have this joke where I was like if I ever become a diva you need to you need to bloody tell me I think if you ever become a diva, George needs to get behind it and go, carry on Paris. Keep divering. He actually does that. And that's the problem.

Like, as in he's never like, yeah, it's very, it's really nice. It's nice to have someone that you've come up with. I don't think, I don't think that we should be apologising for being divas. I mean the divan in sort of like a bit of a tyrannical sense. Yeah, but I still, like, I, you know, I would argue, I used to do that at work in my 20s.

and I would be putting down a boundary or something or saying no to something because I couldn't do it or it didn't work for me. And I would always say, sorry if I seem like a bit of a diva. Oh my God, in my villain era because I told someone no once. Yeah, exactly.

And I hate that for me now, but it's because of artists like you that we are able to like kind of go, no, I'm going to be a fucking be a diva, Paris Paloma. Yeah, you're so right. We wanted you to come here and demand kittens and blue eminent. and, you know, just, just, just, just, just, you just, just, you just enjoy this energy.

Yeah. I think I will. I say, it's so funny. I just, I, um, I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm so immensely grateful for, like, everything that I've had in my job. I just want to, I want to, I want to handle it so carefully, do I mean? And not just, like, um, but I do, I do my fair show of Devering. Yeah, and you're allowed to.

And also, we're allowed to make mistakes. Yeah. And we're allowed to not handle things carefully. definitely sometimes because we're humans. Totally. And women are held to much higher expectations than men. Yes. And perfectionism is a tool of the patriarchy and it can get in the fucking bit. And I often think like I kind of describe it as like when you're like a music artist,

sometimes you feel like a racehorse and you're kind of like kept in your lane. And it's actually quite hard to like foster community. I'm lucky that I do because I knew I would go mad if I didn't have like other friends in this industry. and I'm lucky to call, like, you know, some other wonderful, like, you know, female musicians, like my peers and my friends. But it's hard if you're not making, like, an active effort to be, like, put in the same places by, like, the industry and you, and there's a lot of comparison.

There's a lot of pushing yourself, like, to the highest degree because someone else would do it more than you, do you know what I mean? Yeah, sort of more the comparison, that's like, so. Yeah. So people say to you, well, so-and-so has, you know, would do that. And you have to go, okay, well, that's nice for so-and-so. But they don't say. Like, as in, I don't think, I don't think anyone says that to me.

So then my imagination runs with it. And it's like, I bet so-and-so would do that. Oh, so it's like OCD doing it. Maybe. I don't know. I mean, please diagnose me. I would so, I would love to know. It's that neggy voice in your head.

Yeah. It's the voice of the patriarchy saying, that comes up when we try and when we're just trying our best. Again, it's the voice of perfectionism, isn't it? That there is some invisible person out there. Especially when you're like, when you just catch yourself competing with a woman and you're like, whoa, like, what the fuck am I doing? I catch myself doing it all the time.

I'm just doing Patriarchies stay work for them. Yeah. But we have been, you know, this is where this goes back to choice feminism, right? Yeah. That we have been, and this makes us sounds like sort of step. for wives and this isn't that isn't the case but we have been conditioned the internalized misogyny is massive and so when someone says yeah it's my choice to i don't know inject my face with whatever and again it's like yes it is but why you know it's when they say you know

when someone says to me i prefer being i prefer being thin i'm like why do you why do you prefer being thin. Your choices aren't made in a vacuum. Your choices are made by like every single input that you've had since birth in a society that is like incredibly patriarchal. And it's one of the reasons like why, so you know, the two songs are good boy and good girl. There's a reason for that because I was thinking what are the, what does it look like when women are self-policing and doing patriarchy's work for them? What does it look like when men are self-policing and doing patriarchy's work for them. What is it like when you're being the good girl of patriarchy, when you're being the good boy of patriarchy? It's like, and one of the most like widespread ways that women do that

is through the body, is through like policing your body and shrinking yourself and and making yourself conform and then putting like presenting that as a, as something to look up to to the next generation of girls. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I do know what you mean. Yeah. I think when I realized that I wanted to be thin and it was a sort of patriarchal thing. I was like once I saw that I couldn't unsee it. And so yeah, now when people say to me, because I do a lot of work in this area and when people say, yeah, but I want, you know, I feel better. I can't help it. I just feel better when I'm a size 10. And I'm like, you feel better, babes, because. Because people are treating you nicer because they're told to. And yeah. And because, and of course

you do. And so I don't blame people. But, you know, once I'd interrogated that, I was like, why, I don't really care what size I am, you know. I just, what I care about is all of us treating each other with common decency and realizing that we are all, we're all equal. Yeah. There was a line that didn't make it into Good Girl when it was literally, Good Girl was originally just going to be a spoken word song. And then we just made it into dance track.

Can I just say, it's such a fucking good song. It's like a, I sound like a right boomer saying this. but it's such a banger. Thank you. I love that. We used to bring back calling things bangers. Yeah, it's such a bang.

I don't think it ever went away. But there was a line that went, that didn't make it into it, and it was about confusing, it was about shrinking and then confusing reward for respect. And it's like, you feel better when you adhere to, like,

beauty standards because you're being rewarded for that. Do you know what I mean? It's like this whole, like, new sort of like, tradwyr epidemic with, like, lots of women whose life choices I question who have decided to make a business structure out of telling lots of women to not work and be in your soft feminine energy

and it's like, I feel so good when I'm in my soft feminine energy and I don't know, like my life gets so much better and it's like your life gets better because you're being rewarded by patriarchy because you're doing what it wants. Do you know what I mean? It's like you're just participating in this system and then the irony is they're working they have a job that job is being like a content creator

or like a political like influencer yeah by telling lots of women to not make money and they present it like they've found some kind of balance in their life and in their body by pursuing this path by by sitting back and not doing anything it's like no you're you're just there are elements of benevolent sexism and elements of life that you're being rewarded with, like, pretty privilege or, like, you know, like, anyway, it's also exhausting. And we spend so much time talking about it. Well, we've literally. And we need to.

But yeah, there is a bit of me that's like we could be talking about how to, like, take down Trump, you know. Totally. But how can you do that when you're starving? No. How can you do that when, like, you're putting all your money into, like, cosmetic procedures? Like, and that's, you know. How do you resist Paris?

Because you're working in an industry that is all about, you know, masks and performance. And how do you work your way through that? I try really hard to look after myself and to not get swept up in everybody I, like, know and work with being in. being from that world. Do you know what I mean? I have a lot of my like home friends who keep me grounded who are in like all manner of different jobs and I feel you know fairly like anonymous when I go back to that. So at no point do I feel like I'm just being lifted into any like stratospheric like here a new beauty standards here are new kind of like standards of like personhood. Where like you're then performing all the time. It's like I just as soon as I stop feeling like

a person in my day to day life, that's that's when I start finding things. things really hard, you know, because when you have people looking up to you and having, like, yeah, sometimes like, parasocial relationships or like having this image of you that like, when you're at home in your pajamas, you don't really match up to, that's, it's something where it's like, I just need to allow myself to like have my humanness, but that looks like keeping my private life to myself. That's, I don't know, that's the, that's the foundation level. And then how I resist is just kind of like, like how I started with, like, these affirmations that are in my head where it's like somebody's got to, somebody's got to stay the point of like just not succumbing

to shrinking, not succumbing to kind of dulling your voice down in order to be more palatable for like an industry that rewards like, or like a culture, the reward. sort of like palatable speech and smallness and women kind of being very easy to digest. And I think, yeah, it's hard to know how I resist because it's such an internal monologue. Like, do you know what I mean? No, well, it's wonderful just to hear you talking about it is joyous. I don't think about it very much like consciously. I think a massive part of it for me is just the

the songwriting and like the having a voice because I think that came from when I was like, yeah, like in my teens, so I just felt like I didn't have one. And I was doing all these things like trying really hard to feel like I had a voice and it had any kind of effect on anything. I was like then embroidering like

the titles of feminist essays on the back of my jackets and stuff. And like... What at school? Yeah. How did that go down? It was cool. Like, yeah, everyone thought I was really cool. And you're all girls private school.

But I went to one too, so it's no judgment at all. I didn't, listen, I was like in history of art learning to idolize like Marina Abramovich. I did history. You know, I did history of art as well. it's just it's where it's at it was a great entryway into into feminism and um i was on track then to be doing visual arts as well and so i i always basically conflated like whatever art i was making whether that was the art at the time or music later on with that's the act of resistance do you know what i mean that's like what i'm going to put all my time and energy and fire into when i'd had

really awful things happen and I felt like my voice had been taken away from me and I felt like I didn't matter and there were so many years of writing and like making really visceral artwork and painting ceramics like and then making these songs when I went to university for the first time like just putting it into the void and like that was there are so many things that weren't that didn't ever come out and it was just that process of being like I'm here in this world I have so much that I need to process that I need to heal from and that art is such an intrinsic element of that you know I've always really conflated it with my identity which is a good thing and a bad thing I think is it's bad when I then don't allow like the separation

to like recover and I feel like maybe it's bad when I don't feel like making art and then I don't feel so much like myself but but it's it's good in the sense that it feels so personal to me and it feels it's the emotional necessity you know for me to work through again like I keep coming back to this like when and a lot of men will say this I had a really reductive interview recently actually when the first question he asked me, which got cut out of the interview, was are you a good girl or a bad girl? And I, oh God, maybe I feel like that. What did you?

Can we just, can we tell you? It was crazy. And it was. What did you say? I said a very eloquent and yet unimpressed answer, which I was very proud of because I didn't. would have wanted to just be like, I don't know, like, I'm not going to answer, but I was like, in good faith. It was the first question. I just sat down. And I said something like, well, the whole point of the song of Good Girl is opting out of labels that insinuate that men have any

kind of authority over like the, you know, women's appearance or women's needs or women's, like, desires of what they want from the world. And yeah, so I just kind of neglected to answer, but then gave a different one. And then they cut it out because I don't think that was very satisfactory. But that, not to bad mouth, but that interview was from a man and it was all very like focused on

like, oh, you took this political stance, so defend this. Like, you know, you criticise men a lot. So answer this question about that. And I have to be like, well, I don't criticize men. I criticize patriarchy. I criticise misogyny I criticise misogyny

and anyway there's this kind of attitude where people just label you as a political artist because that's really convenient because they don't have to think about

why they don't engage in politics in their day to day life because they other it right but I think I'm literally all I've ever done is write about my thoughts and feelings and that's what I'm thinking about

and that's what greatly moves me concerns me, worries me, panics me, makes me feel like my voice is being taken away from me so I want to reclaim it and take it back. And the best artists, by the way, are out there like being so vocal. Like, I'm a massive

CEMAT fan, a massive Zara Larson fan, both of whom are like, you know, reaching or like at the top of their game, like and they are being really un- political. Yeah. Oh my God, that's what a political artist.

Well, they're just telling you what they think about things going on in the world. Yeah. And I think that you are, you know, you're not. And again, yeah, as you say, to call you a political artist is to, is sort of an attempt to kind of keep you, you know, off out of the mainstream, actually. Yeah. I mean, is anything apolitical? Do you know what I mean? Like, as in like the decision to make artists political, the ability to make artist political, that speaks to privilege that I have and speaks to a privilege that a lot of people.

in the arts have. And, you know, it, so I take it proudly, but also it's, I'm just writing about my life, the political element is that I've been affected by these things. And that's,

I don't write about things I don't know. Yeah. I'm sorry that you've experienced sexual violence. I won't ask you any more about that. I'm sorry that you've experienced those things. No, thank you. I mean, it is what it is. I'm sorry that so many girls have experienced it, like this daily thing. And I receive so many, like, messages and comments about it. And on the one hand, I'm so overwhelmed with gratitude that people do resonate with my music. But then I'm just like,

God, this is huge. This is like a huge problem. And I feel like why, why, how can I not like write about this? Do you know what I mean? And that makes me so grateful that like anything, like whether it's labour or like even like the fruits are much older song of mine or good girl. Like they're all like kind of lightning rods for women and girls to find solace in. But the demand for it is really sad and not enough is being done about it. Like not enough men are talking. about things like this and like stepping up and being like good allies and there's a lot of people who like lack object permanence when like a problem isn't immediately in front of them because of their privilege they just forget about it and they don't think that they have a role to play to play when they do it's instrumental and again i like i say i'm very lucky i have i have so many people in my life who it is a constant conversation i have a lot of men in my life a lot of the new album there's like themes of what it is to like to know men to kind of analyze their behavior what it is to examine that what it is to love men whilst whilst examining masculinity and and to even like

to be in love with a man whilst whilst that and there's you know songs that engage with that because like I'm just a person as well like having having like I don't have some kind of like a grandized feminist elevated existence because I wrote a song like Labor. And I stand behind everything on the album, but it's been something that's really fascinated me. Like, I've read like a lot of bell hooks. A lot of the album is really influenced by the book specifically All About Love. Yeah. And also The Will to Change and how she writes about masculinity with such love.

Like, she writes about men with such love and masculinity with such like, concise analysis and you don't ever feel like she's losing sight of like how we can actually formulate change and make things better for everyone men and women can you talk to me about the single it's called stem the flow i was hoping it was going to be a song about periods i'm not going to lie i really was because you did once dress up you said you once you wore this dress that you said was like a the tampon the tampon dress i'm like the producer i love you she's the best and my stylist Leith Clark is that I love her to pieces. And she just,

she constructed this amazing moment with this amazing dress by Haniagi, whose work is incredible. And we, I ended up wearing that dress on international women's day in Washington, D.C. when I was on tour, which just felt like, a statement. It felt like a major, like, fuck you. And I did a speech and I did my, did my set.

And that was an amazing night in an amazing room. Yeah. Stem the Flow is like, an incredibly personal song on the album. There's a lot of externalisation on this album. Like I could sort of say, cacophony was very much about my inner world. And like, you know, the noise, the mental illness, the struggle,

the warring with yourself. And the fatal flaw is an album that really engages with a lot of my external relationship. with people. There's a lot in it about love. There's a lot in it about heartbreak. There's a lot in about growing and changing. And there are lots of songs that kind of call back to each other on the album as there's

been a journey like through love and through like through that love self-discovery. Do you know what I mean? And Stem the Flow is a song about like difficulty and heartbreak. And I kind of, I'm not going to. Yeah, I'm not going to go too much into it. But like, it's, there's sort of passages that have been really inspired by in books like Bell Hooks where it's kind of like you're thinking about the love, what you call love and what you deserve. And if you've been in relationships where you called something love that isn't fucking love.

We've all, yeah. We've all been in relationships that we've thought were love. and they were actually kind of the opposite. And you have to really brutally reconcile with that and be like, if I see that as love, I will go on to accept that in the future again, like as love and therefore it's this kind of like, it's this exhausting reckoning, really.

But then it's hard when you're not quite ready to let that go. And stem the flow, like a lot of the album kind of there's this repeated imagery of like love as this open wound like this like this bleat because that's what it felt like to me at the time of writing this album and and that that dissipates slowly and and love becomes less of this like painful open like wound like I don't know and you know I've had I've had a fairly healing time of it which has been very nice but um yeah stem the flow is is one of those like you just feel like you're walking around with this like open wound all the time like and that's what that's what a lot of

love like that's what we're told felt like yeah that is and this brings us full circle yeah it brings us to when I was young yeah we were often told you know that what actually it was dysfunction that people were singing about not love yeah I'm also really hoping that like people understand that a great deal of this album is about dysfunctional love And like I hope we've all, we all keep hold of our, our media literacy with a tight grip. I mean, yeah, like not a great deal of the songs. I think it's also I feel like I'm quite direct in my storytelling and songwriting. So I think that's, I'm not really actually worried.

But it's very vulnerable writing about your own dysfunction, especially when sometimes I catch people looking at me for answers. it's like because of certain songs I've written and I'm like, oh no, I'm just a person who has loved very dysfunctionally, has been loved very dysfunctionally. And it's about, yeah, great deal of the album is about the relationship between love and art and both of those feel like urgent needs and they feel like for me is what everything comes down to as like the basest human like behaviours and needs. So it's, yeah, I'm really, I'm really, I'm.

I'm very proud of it and it feels really vulnerable as a body of work and it's a lot more sort of like these songs have a lot tighter of a relationship to each other than the songs and cacophony did. Yeah. Can I tell you something? Yeah. It sounds fucking great. And my love for you, Paris Paloma, is healthy. It's honest.

It is, it's not codependent in any way, shape, awful. And I feel that from you. I love you. I love you too. I'm really grateful for you coming on The Life of Briany. Paris Flomor. Fatal Floor is out in September. Thank you, the Flow is out now.

Thank you for coming on the Life of Brieney. Thank you so much. Guys, I could have carried on talking to Paris for about another eight hours. Unfortunately, she had to leave and had places to go. I would love to know what you thought about that conversation. Come and tell me over on Instagram at at Life of Briny Pod. Paris will be back on Friday for The Life of You, where she'll be talking about what keeps her grounded

when the world gets a little bit too loud. In the meantime, do not forget to subscribe, follow, rate, rave about us to all your friends, but most of all, keep being you. I'll see you next time.