Charli XCX is that girl. The pop queen graces the cover of Vanity Fair, opening up about everything from her nerves ahead of the Sweat Tour to her upcoming film The Moment, and she does it all with her signature honesty and wit.

Believe it or not, Charli admitted that before hitting the road with Troye Sivan, she was actually nervous about how the joint tour would be received. “I was worried that people would be like, ‘Oh no, who’s this girl preventing us from hearing ‘Rush’?’ Um, and then obviously, you know, things kinda changed for me,” she told the magazine. Spoiler: she crushed it, because she’s Charli XCX.

She also clarified that The Moment is not your typical pop star tour documentary. “I feel like my problem with a lot of musician documentaries is it often shows the musician coming up against some kind of opposition and eventually overcoming it to be the hero, and that’s just not been my experience, you know? Maybe it has been a lot of other people’s, and that’s awesome.”

Describing the film as a “2024 period piece,” she explained, “It’s not a tour documentary or a concert film in any way… It’s fiction, but it’s the realest depiction of the music industry that I’ve ever seen.”

Charli also teased the soundtrack for Wuthering Heights, which she described as “an elegant and brutal sound palette” that couldn’t be more different from Brat. Directed by Emerald Fennell and starring Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie, the trailer features Charli’s track “Everything Is Romantic,” giving us chills in true Brat fashion.

Never one to hold back, Charli opened up about Hollywood’s beauty standards and her experience with Botox. “I did a couple of audition tapes where I had Botox, and my eyebrows were doing that crazy thing when they kind of lift,” she said, candidly reflecting on the pressure artists face in the industry.

She also got real about ambition and identity. “I don’t even think my driving factor has been, ‘I wanna be the biggest pop star ever in the world,’ or anything like that. I always just wanted to make music on my own terms and have as many people listen to it as possible, which sounds really simple. But I think I’ve really struggled over the years, because I’ve never felt like I fit in.”

She continued, “Am I supposed to be this underground left artist, or am I supposed to try and be this commercial package? And I think before Brat, I just gave up on fighting with myself on that.”

And let’s not forget, Rolling Stone recently ranked Brat as the 34th Greatest Album of the 21st Century So Far, and the 16th highest for a female artist.

“Brat explodes with cool-girl energy, but look deeper and you’ll find brutal, universal confessions of angst, anxiousness, and paranoia.”

Charli XCX isn’t just in her bag; she is the moment. And this Vanity Fair cover is just another reminder of why she’s one of the most exciting, influential pop artists of our time.