Why Didn’t Lorde Sing During Her VMA Performance?

Jack Antonoff was pumped to introduce his friend “Ella” (you may know her as Lorde) before her VMA performance. Shortly after he and Alessandra Ambrosio heralded her arrival, Lorde took the stage in a tinfoil dress, one that would shortly birth many conspiracy theories from the tinfoil hat wearers of the internet. Instead of singing her song “Homemade Dynamite,” the singer just…did an interpretative dance around the stage. It would have been very confusing, but there might be a simple explanation as to why she didn’t actually perform the song.

During the pre-show, Lorde first tweeted a picture of her gorgeous lavender confection of a dress. “MOON PRINCESS” she called the look.

She followed it up with a longer explanation. She’s got the flu, and it’s apparently so bad she needed an IV just to make it to the show.

It looks like Lorde pulled it together for her performance, though, in a way that’s probably never been seen on the VMA stage before. There was twirling. There was leaping. There was a crew to toss her into the air.

Not everyone understood what was happening. Hailee Steinfeld, for one, looked quite confused about the proceedings.

It’s unclear as to why MTV didn’t have any sort of explainer about the performance we were about to watch before it went down. People on Twitter were quick to jump in with some comparisons for her performance, a few of which were a little rude.

One person compared it to Napoleon Dynamite’s epic dance routine, which is even an honor or a ding, depending on how you feel about it.

Another thought she looked like a leaping gazelle.

And some were just shocked that she didn’t actually sing or speak a word.

Lorde has yet to offer a follow-up tweet explaining her unique whirl-and-twirl on the VMA stage. Homemade dynamite, indeed.