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Lorde appeared on the Tuesday, June 24 episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to promote her fourth studio album, Virgin
During the interview, the “Royals” hitmaker revealed she was almost arrested by the NYPD’s antiterrorism unit
At the time, Lorde was attempting to shoot her “What Was That?” music video in Washington Square Park
Lorde is opening up about an intense encounter with the NYPD.
During the Tuesday, June 24 episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the “Royals” hitmaker shared new details about how her first attempt to shoot a music video for her new single “What Was That?” was shutdown by the police.
As the show’s host, Stephen Colbert, pointed out, Lorde posted that she would be in Washington Square Park on her Instagram Stories, but “such a mob showed up that the cops shut it down.”
“Yeah, we had the antiterrorism unit being very intense, telling me if I stepped on the premises I would be arrested for riot incitement,” the singer, 28, revealed.
Lorde said she “couldn’t show up for many hours” after that, but she did eventually return to the park to shoot the video. “I came back later, they said, ‘You can go out, you have one shot at it.'”
“If people don’t maybe know this, we were launching my first song for this album, but we were also shooting the music video, which would come out 24 hours later,” she explained of the stakes. “So there was an edit that had to be gotten to very quickly.”
She added, “A lot of dominoes had to fall right for this to work. The NYPD was definitely a spanner.”
The NYPD Counterterrorism unit has not yet responded to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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On April 22, the NYPD issued a statement to PEOPLE confirming they had to shutdown the gathering in Washington Square Park due to a lack of permit.
A spokesperson for the NYPD told PEOPLE, “Officers were alerted of an unscheduled event inside the park. Sound and park permits are required to have a concert in a New York City Park, and the individuals were not in possession of either. Organizers of the event were informed they could not perform, and they left the location.”
Jamie McCarthy/Getty
Lorde at the 2025 Met Gala
Despite the confusion, Lorde still managed to keep her promise to her fans as she performed “What Was That?” in the park later that evening. “You guys are so amazing,” she told the crowd, in videos captured by fans. “I love you so much.”
Elsewhere in her interview with Colbert, 61, Lorde got candid about the process of making an album.
“You learn so much,” she said. “Honestly, I think of the process of making an album is going out on a quest. It’s this real journey… you pick up these questions along the way. You’re trying to really get somewhere. For me, the album is sort of a byproduct of that process. Like, I make the album because it’s a period of so much discovery.”
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Lorde’s fourth studio album, Virgin, will be released on Friday, June 27.
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