Andra Day Says She Made Her Billie Holiday Performance About The Music

We love Andra Day and we thought her performance in the United States VS Billie Holiday was phenomenal.

Source: Pool / Getty

The actress and singer is featured on the June 2021 cover of InStyle Magazine.

The images shot by Chrisean Rose are works of art and the cover story revealed quite a few things we didn’t know about Day before – like the face that Stevie Wonder was pivotal to the launch of her career! We also learned even more about her deep dive into Billie Holiday’s life to play her. While we were already aware that she dropped 40 pounds to portray the singer, we had no idea that she went into the role with the intent of focusing on Holiday’s music, not the way Lady Day was hypersexualized.

“I didn’t want any element of sexualization. I had come out of something in my own life — dealing with porn addiction, sex addiction,” Day told cultural critic Rebecca Carroll for the InStyle cover story. “I’m being very, very candid with you because I’m not the only one. But I knew I wanted all of that very much gone.”

“I feel now, after playing Billie, that I’m honoring her, and the strength that is femininity. I’m definitely in a healthier place to enjoy that because I’m outside of the addiction, if you will. So, yeah, it’s been really fun, because it’s been very new for me.”

Who knew?! Still, we have so many questions. How did this disclosure not get any further follow up questions?

We are loving the colors and patterns of this shoot though!

The magazine also released a video of Andra Day singing some of her favorites for their Open Mic Q&A segment

Check it out below:

Pure comedy — she didn’t want to sing “Rise Up”! But it’s all good, we love that Lena Horne song and we really love that she showed Kehlani some love.

Hit the flip for more from the interview