Perched on the edge of an expensively upholstered booth in a central London restaurant, Allie X – dressed like Wednesday Addams’s older sister in a crushed black velvet dress and round glasses – is rattling off the C-word with giddy abandon. Her latest single, the camp, synth-slathered 80s throwback Off With Her Tits, has just landed on streaming platforms after days of hyperbolic teasing and she’s feeling “unhinged”.
“I’m being really cocky about it, like: ‘This is the best song I’ve ever written,’” she laughs, having earlier described the song on social media as “MEASURING 10s ACROSS THE BOARD ON THE RECTAL SCALE”. However it’s not the word cocky that’s drawing our fellow diners’ attention, but rather the one you’re definitely thinking about. It’s a word her mostly gay, very online fanbase use to describe her all the time. “It’s funny because I used to take offence to the C-word, but the gays and the girls have taken it back,” she says. “If I ever hear a straight man say it then I still find it super-offensive.”
