Nelly Furtado is taking a step back from performing.
The “I’m Like a Bird” singer, 46, announced in a reflective Instagram post on Friday, Oct. 24, that she has “decided to step away from performance for the foreseeable future.”
Furtado said she plans to pursue “other creative and personal endeavours that I feel would better suit this next phase of my life.” She did not elaborate on what these endeavours will be.
USA TODAY has reached out to representatives for Furtado for additional information.
The announcement comes amid the Grammy Award-winning artist’s return to music after a seven-year hiatus. In September 2024, she released “7,” her first studio album since 2017.
Nelly Furtado: The singer seemingly responds to body shamers with onstage outfit
Nelly Furtado visits SiriusXM Studios on July 11, 2024, in New York City.
“I really feel like I was called back to the industry by the industry, especially DJs,” she told Grammy.com in a 2024 interview. “I would go out and hear my songs played before arena shows of other artists, and at house parties and clubs. There was a sense of joy and celebration in it. … I thought, this can only be remixed so many times, I better go make some new stuff.”
Furtado is coming off her Better Than Ever summer festival tour, which included a number of live performances in August. She announced her hiatus as she marked the 25th anniversary of her first studio album, “Whoa, Nelly!” in 2000, which included her hit single “I’m Like a Bird.” The song earned her the Grammy for best female pop vocal performance in 2002, and it was also nominated for song of the year.
Furtado followed up “Whoa, Nelly!” with her 2003 sophomore album “Folklore.” She also released the albums “Loose,” “Mi Plan,” “The Spirit Indestructible” and “The Ride” from 2006 to 2017.
In her Instagram post, Furtado reflected that it has “been so fun” to get “out on stages again and seeing up close, the true lasting power of good music.”
After announcing that she will step back from performing, the singer also said that she has “enjoyed my career immensely” and will still “identify as a songwriter forever.” As part of her post, she shared a clip of herself on stage in Berlin this summer before a cheering crowd, “finally understanding what receiving flowers means.”
Furtado’s announcement also comes after she made headlines in August when she wore an oversized T-shirt with an optical-illusion outline of a woman’s body at Manchester Pride. Fans interpreted this as a statement against body shamers, with one user writing on TikTok, “I admire her so much in just being herself and doing her thing against the torrent of abuse she gets for having a normal body.”
Furtado’s stylist, Phil Gomez, backed up this interpretation at the time, sharing a post on Instagram that said she “shuts down body shamers” with the outfit.
In January, Furtado wrote on Instagram that she has experienced “new levels of self-love and genuine confidence from within,” while urging fans to “celebrate your individuality and know that it’s perfectly OK to be OK with what you see in the mirror, and it’s also OK to want something different.” She added, “We are all cute little humans just bouncing around the earth looking for hugs.”
Contributing: Melina Khan, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nelly Furtado takes break from performing live, announces hiatus
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