Iggy Azalea Blames Tour Cancellation on "Creative Change of Heart"

BY Alex HudsonPublished Jun 2, 2015

Late last week, we received word that Rap star Iggy Azalea had cancelled her entire North American tour after previously delaying it by a number of months. Now, the Australian rap star has spoken out to explain the reason for the cancellation.

In a statement to Seventeen, Iggy said that she had a "creative change of heart" and wanted to "start totally anew." She described her current creative state as "the end of an era" and wants to have time to incorporate new material in her shows.

It seems that she's also facing some burn-out, saying that she has "been going non-stop for the past two years, nearly every single day." What about the extra time she had when she postponed this tour the last time?

She also had trouble find suitable openers. Read Iggy's full statement below, and see the cancelled tour dates below that.

I've had a different creative change of heart. I want to start totally anew, and if I stayed on my tour, that would mean I wouldn't even be able to start working on that until after Christmas.

On top of that, mentally, to be honest with you, I just feel I deserve a break. I've been going non-stop for the past two years, nearly every single day. I'm not in a bad place. I think sometimes when you say you need a mental break, people are like, "A mental break? Be sure you don't have a breakdown because you're sad." No, not necessarily. It's very emotionally draining to be on all the time and going all the time, planning all the time. It's a lot, and it's tough. I need a break from everything to just enjoy what I worked so hard for, and I don't really feel like I've had a chance to do that. I need a break to figure out what I want my sound to progress to, and I need a break to figure out how I want my visuals to progress.

It can kind of wear on you, too, when you've been doing the same material for a really long time. Even though a lot of people just discovered it, I am a musician and a creative person and I want to be able to perform new stuff and do new things. I feel like I'm at the end of an era now. To go on a tour in late September and to stay in that mindset of what I'd envisioned for that tour, I feel like that would stifle me.

And then, on top of that, once I postponed [the tour the first time], I couldn't find two opening acts. I began the search, and to be honest, I never found someone who was available on those dates that I thought was a good fit for the tour.

It just seemed like it was so many things pointing me in the direction of not doing [the tour], that I finally thought, when enough things come your way, you can't ignore the signs. It's not easy to decide that the best thing to do is cancel a tour, but that's the best thing for me. I don't want to disappoint fans. I feel really bad. It was a tough decision to make, but it was the best thing.

There are people thinking it's me giving up, or me failing at something, somehow. I said to a friend the other day, "The only reason why at this point I would stay and do this tour is to save face publicly, or to not endure publicly what people will say if I cancel it," and that's not a good enough reason to do something. So that's the choice I made.


Tour dates:

09/18 San Diego, CA - Valley View Casino Center
09/20 Fresno, CA - SaveMart Center
09/24 Oakland, CA - The Oracle Arena
09/25 Los Angeles, CA - Staples Center
09/29 Denver, CO - Pepsi Center
10/01 Minneapolis, MN - Target Center
10/02 Rosemont, IL - Allstate Arena
10/03 Auburn Hills, MI - The Palace of Auburn Hills
10/05 Washington, DC - Verizon Center
10/06 Boston, MA - TD Garden
10/08 Toronto, ON - Air Canada Centre
10/10 Philadelphia, PA - Wells Fargo Center
10/11 Brooklyn, NY - Barclays Center
10/12 Newark, NJ - Prudential Center
10/15 Atlanta, GA - Philips Arena
10/17 Miami, FL - AmericanAirlines Arena
10/18 Orlando, FL - Amway Center
10/22 Houston, TX - Toyota Center
10/23 Austin, TX - Frank Erwin Center
10/25 Dallas, TX - American Airlines Center
10/27 Glendale, AZ - Gila River Arena


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