The music star admitted she was “really messy” during her teen years and shared the mistake that stayed with her
Swedish singer Zara Larsson has been looking back on her wild teen years, including one painful mistake that changed her place in her friend group. She said the moment was strange, messy, and ended with her being pushed out by people she cared about.
The 28-year-old hitmaker admitted that when she was younger, she could be “really messy.” These days, she sees herself in a much calmer way and even compares herself to “a granny,” which shows how much her life and habits have changed since then.
One moment from her teenage years, involving her former best friend’s boyfriend, became a key memory for Larsson. It did not just cause drama at the time. It also stayed with her long enough to later shape part of her music.
While appearing on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Larsson explained that the first version of her song “Girl’s Girl” came from this exact situation. The track was linked to the guilt, confusion, and fallout that followed that night.
In the song, she sings lyrics such as: “But you’re with somebody else, I know that girl / Since we were ten and 12 / Yes, I’m aware, but I don’t care / ‘Cause temptation is getting to me.”
“I wanna be a girl’s girl / But what happens when a girl’s girl wants the boy? I know that she’s my friend, but I just can’t avoid / The way I feel about you, if I had the choice / You’d be all mine.”
So, it is not too hard to guess where this story is heading. The song points to a messy friendship problem, and Larsson has now explained the real moment that helped spark it.
The music star joined Alex Cooper earlier this week for a wide-ranging chat about her rise to fame. That journey started early, after she won Sweden’s version of Britain’s Got Talent when she was only 10 years old.
Larsson revealed she was ‘cut off’ by her friends as a teenager due to the indiscretionIwi Onodera/Redferns
Larsson later landed a record deal at 14, setting her on the path toward a career that would reach far beyond Sweden. Over time, she became known around the world, but her teenage life was still full of normal growing pains behind the scenes.
While she was trying to build a future in music, she was also dealing with the kind of teen drama that can feel huge at the time. In her case, that included causing serious upset after kissing her best friend’s boyfriend.
She said the guy had been “flirting with her all night” at a New Year’s Eve party, even though he was already dating one of her close friends. That attention set up the messy moment that followed later in the night.
Larsson, who was 16 at the time, said she was not even focused on him at first because she was “really interested in his friend.” But as the party came to an end, things shifted, and she ended up sharing an unplanned kiss with him.
The singer said it was ‘one of her worst mistakes in life’YouTube/Call Her Daddy
“I was picking up my jacket, everyone was already downstairs,” she told Cooper. “We were going somewhere else. He just kind of started kissing me.”
“And I just kissed him back, because I was messy like that – and I was 16 and really drunk.”
Larsson did not realize the moment had been recorded. What she thought was a private mistake soon became something she could not control, because someone at the party had filmed them kissing without her knowing.
She explained: “The f***ed up thing about this though, was that the girl whose [house] we had had the party at, she filmed this, and I didn’t know.”
“So before I got the chance to tell my friend what happened the next day, she had already got the video sent to her.”
“But the truth is I wasn’t really in love with him or interested in him – it was this weird mistake that happened. But obviously, seeing it…”
The “On My Love” singer said her friend “just cut her off” after seeing the video, and the rest of their friend group did the same. Larsson described how alone she felt after it happened, adding: “And I was just like a floating piece of trash in the universe.”
She made clear that while those events “inspired” her song “Girl’s Girl,” the lyrics “definitely wasn’t the truth.” The song came from the feeling and the memory, but it did not match every detail of what happened in real life.
Larsson said her friend “didn’t speak to her for four years” after she kissed her boyfriend. Over time, though, the two found a way back to each other, and she explained that they later reconnected after years of distance.
“Now it’s okay and everyone’s like on good terms,” she added. “It was one of my worst mistakes in life. Like, it truly was. At 16, I just…if I could take it back, I would so, so, so bad.”
“But I also have to like forgive myself for it because again, this is more than 10 years ago now, and I was just really stupid and messy.”
“And also I found out that I can’t drink. I just can’t. My morals and my just sense of self, like it just goes out the window.”
Looking back, Larsson seemed to speak about the moment with regret rather than excuses. She admitted that she made a bad choice at 16, but she also placed it in the context of being young, drunk, and not yet clear on her own limits.
Her comments also show how fast a private mistake can turn into something bigger when other people record it. For Larsson, the video reached her friend before she had the chance to explain what had happened in her own words.
The story became part of her past, but it also fed into her work as an artist. By speaking about it now, she connected the mistake, the friendship fallout, and the song in a way that gives more context to “Girl’s Girl” without taking back the regret she still feels.