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Grammy Award Winner Lorde Talks Croatian Heritage

By 9 September 2017

Yet another talented Croatian to add to the ever-growing list - Lorde talks about her Croatian heritage. 

While this may be a surprise to some of you, it’s safe to assume that many of you know by now that singer Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, known better by her stage name “Lorde”, is Croatian.

The New Zealand born singer-songwriter and two-time Grammy Award winner has never been shy about her Croatian heritage, and on episode 844 of WTF with Marc Maron released on September 7, 2017, the singer gave listeners a taste of her “Croatianness” on-air. 

After discussing the many differences between New Zealand and America with Maron, the 20-year-old, who grew up in New Zealand with a Croatian mother and Irish father, discussed her early life.

“My mother is Croatian. There are 100,000, kind of Dalmatian, Croatian, Yugoslav people in New Zealand. There’s a lot of wine; Dalmatians drink a lot of wine down there. So yeah, I am Croatian, and I have Croatian citizenship.”

Show-host Marc Maron then asked the singer how she was able to obtain her Croatian citizenship. 

“Do you just get that from being Croatian because your mom’s Croatian?”

“I am a bit of a fancy, famous Croatian. I think not every Croatian gets that, I think they hooked me up, so to speak,” Lorde responded.

You can listen to the full episode here. 

A performance of the singer at the VMA's just over a week ago.

In addition to winning a Grammy Award twice, Lorde has also won four New Zealand Music Awards, the New Zealand APRA Silver Scroll Award for hit song “Royals”, two Billboard Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award, and one World Music Award. 

The song “Royals” made the singer the youngest solo artist to achieve a number-one single in the US. 

Lorde joins the list of other famous Croats including actors John Malkovich and Eric Bana, a founding member of the band Nirvana, Krist Novoselic, and many more. 

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