Grimes’ first public appearance following her split from Elon Musk was certainly one to remember. The progressive pop star was photographed on Friday reading Karl Marx’s "Communist Manifesto" on a Los Angeles street corner, and the press had a field day.
However, it seems the whole thing was not a jab at her billionaire tech mogul ex — who is currently the world’s richest man with a net worth of over $ 210 billion — but, in fact, a "troll" move aimed at paparazzi. Grimes explained it all on Instagram for her 2.2 million followers. Here’s her take on the matter.
Grimes’ Karl Marx Prank Was Not About Elon Musk
While it’s easy to understand why some people may have mistaken Grimes’ prank for a dig at Musk — the two recently separated after being together for three years — the artist was actually having a laugh at the expense of paparazzi following her around to a shoot last week.
The 33-year-old Canadian singer, whose real name is Claire Elise Boucher, poked fun of the whole situation on Twitter, saying she had aimed to get the most Onion-esque headline out of it.
"and it worked haha," she wrote in a post that got almost 108,000 likes and nearly 8,000 retweets.
The fact that she was seemingly at work also explained her wild outfit — a "spacey" brown jumpsuit and hoodie described by the New York Post as "worthy of a Martian cotillion."
Trolling The Paparazzi
Decidedly, Grimes’ followers thought the prank was "brilliant," with the singer and mother-of-one replying in the same thread: "This whole thing is so funny I think my publicist is stressed, I should probably stop impulsively doing controversial things, my friend just had the book and the photogs were outside."
"I’ll prob regret this later hahaha," she added.
Grimes further elaborated on the whole thing in an Instagram update on Sunday, explaining that her posing with Karl Marx’s 1848 anti-capitalistic book was a perfect "opportunity to troll" paparazzi.
"If paparazzi keep chasing me perhaps I will try to think of more ways to meme," she wrote, inviting followers to come up with ideas.
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Grimes And Elon Musk Still Living Together Following Their Breakup
In the update, Grimes also made a reference to Musk, with whom she shares 1-year-old son X Æ A-Xii.
"Full disclosure I’m still living with e [Elon Musk] and I am not a communist (although there are some very smart ideas in this book)," she wrote on Instagram.
The singer continued: "Personally I’m more interested in a radical decentralized ubi that I think could potentially be achieved thru crypto and gaming but I haven’t ironed that idea out enough yet to explain it."
Grimes’ TikTok Rant On AI And Communism
This was not the first time that Grimes and communism have come up together in the same headline. Taking to TikTok earlier this summer, the "Oblivion" singer argued that artificial intelligence was “the fastest path to communism,” leaving fans baffled.
“If implemented correctly, AI could actually theoretically solve for abundance. Like, we could totally get to a situation where nobody has to work, everybody is provided for with a comfortable state of being, [a] comfortable living,” she said in a June video. "So basically everything everybody loves about communism, but without the collective farm."
Her TikTok came out around the same time Musk declared he was a socialist on Twitter.
Grime and Musk, who began dating in 2018, decided to go their separate ways last month.
“We are semi-separated but still love each other, see each other frequently and are on great terms,” Musk told Page Six on September 24.
