1. Her real name is Tahliah Debrett Barnett
FKA Twigs was born on 16 January 1988 and is a British singer-songwriter, producer and dancer. She was born and raised in raised in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. Her mother is an English woman of partly Spanish descent who used to be a dancer and gymnast, and her father, a musician, is Jamaican. She was raised by her mother and stepfather, a “jazz fanatic”, and did not meet her father until she was 18. As for her moniker, the singer attributed that to a necklace she was wearing as well as her habit of cracking her long, slender fingers. The initials came later, when, the day before her first U.S. tour, the discovery of a band called “The Twigs” had her manager worried about possible injunctions. “I actually didn’t realize that ‘FKA’ meant ‘Formerly Known As’,” but FKA Twigs has said in multiple interviews that the letters do not stand for anything in particular.
2. FKA Twigs became a backup dancer at age 17
After moving to London, she became a dancer when she was 17 years old. In the past few years, she also practiced pole dancing and had a pole installed in her own living room. In one of her music video’s “Cellophane”, it opens with the singer dancing on a pole. Twigs’ glides, seemingly floating, up and down and down and up the shiny column. In an interview with Nylon, Twigs said she practiced pole dancing for at least two hours a day while doing cardio and cross-training in between. “The concept for ‘Cellophane’ came while I was writing it, more than a year before we shot the video,” Twigs explains. “So I had to go learn pole dancing, which is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I wanted to show that process—the practice, the training, the moments when it isn’t quite working. The journey.”
3. She’s worked as a backup dancer for big artists including Jessie J
FKA Twigs worked as a backup dancer in music videos by artists such as Kylie Minogue, Plan B, Ed Sheeran, Taio Cruz, Dionne Bromfield, Jessie J, and Wretch 32. Barnett was a backup dancer for Jessie J in her 2010 video for “Do It like a Dude“, and appeared again in her 2011 video for “Price Tag“. She also appeared in Dionne Bromfield’s video “Yeah Right“. In 2011, she appeared in a two-minute BBC comedy sketch titled Beyoncé Wants Groceries, in which she was a backup dancer in a supermarket. In 2018, a commercial for Apple’s HomePod featured FKA Twigs only dancing to the accompaniment of a song by American rapper Anderson .Paak.
4. For a time, she worked as a hostess in a strip club and also sang periodically at The Box
In her early 20s, FKA Twigs plied her trade on the London cabaret scene centered at The Box, where she appeared as a character equal parts Betty Boop, Jessica Rabbit and Josephine Baker (from whom she borrowed her signature hairstyles.) Her lived experience as a very young woman in these environments not only informed the strong and formidable woman that she is today, but also a lot of her work as a music and visual artist – sometimes even subconsciously.
5. FKA Twigs music has been described as “genre-bending”
Her music is not merely about the songs but is a seamless combination of theatrical choreography, multi-media conceptualization and an opera-like rendition of what one could call electronic club dance music. Nonetheless, it would be pointless to try and pigeonhole Twigs’ music into a particular genre. Combinations of distinctly different styles often run the risk of going wrong but on Twigs’ carefully crafted compositions, they become kind of ethereal. Many of her videos are as otherworldly as her music can be and watching them on a large screen with a good audio system can be a treat. Variety stated that her music was “darkly avant-garde, aggressive and atmospheric”, adding that her “scorched earth-soul of 2014’s LP1 and 2019’s Magdalene positioned her as a cross between Billie Holiday and Siouxsie and the Banshees”, with a production style like Lee Scratch Perry’s.
6. She’s inspired by singer-songwriter & dancer Janet Jackson
She’s inspired by musicians and singers as diverse as Massive Attack’s trip hop and Janet Jackson’s R&B, but with her own music, she goes far beyond her influences. Far from being derivative, her music stands quite apart from the rest. FKA twigs is largely known for her avant–garde electronic pop style and distinct soprano voice that weaves through bizarre melodies that are difficult to replicate.
7. Her first studio album, LP1, peaked at number 16 on the UK Albums Chart
Twigs has had a spellbinding career, exploding on to the pop scene a decade ago with operatic vocal arrangements, conceptual videos and futuristic instrumentals. After her London move, a chance meeting with the photographer Matthew Stone soon led to a street-casting shoot for i-D. Her portrait made the magazine’s cover, and in what she calls “genius serendipity,” she put out her EP1 at the same time through YouTube. It went viral, and in short order Twigs put out two more EPs and a full-length album, LP1. In 2014, she was nominated for the BBC’s Sound of 2014 prize, and was chosen by Spotify for their Spotlight on 2014 list. She was also featured on Billboard’s 14 Artists to Watch in 2014. “Video Girl”, the third and last single from the album, was released alongside a video a few days later, as well as an advert for Google Glass which Barnett directed.
8. FKA Twigs got engaged and broke up with ex–fiancé Robert Pattinson
Robert Pattinson got engaged to FKA Twigs in 2015 after six months of dating, but they split in 2017. The two had been dating for three years, but their travel schedules “took a big toll” on the relationship and that Pattinson initiated the split. When asked in a 2019 interview with The Sunday Times whether he and his ex were still on good terms, Pattinson reportedly replied, “Yes, yes.”
9. FKA Twigs Says She Suffered ‘Deeply Horrific’ Racism From Fans During Her Engagement to Robert Pattinson
On Louis Theroux’s Grounded podcast in 2021, FKA Twigs reflected on the online comments she received during their three-year engagement with Robert Pattinson. “It was really, really deeply horrific and I think it was at a time where I felt like I couldn’t really talk about it. If I was going through that now, I feel like I’d be able to talk about it, and do some good with it,” the singer said. “But I don’t know whether it was because of my age or whether it was because of the social climate or whether it was because being Black … [but] people just called me the most hurtful and ignorant and horrible names under the planet.” Twigs also revealed to the New York Times that dating Pattinson came with its own difficulties, namely social media abuse. “It’s really hard—I can’t begin to explain how awful it is,” she said. “It makes you want to just stop everything sometimes. It makes you want to smash your face into the mirror.”
10. FKA Twigs filed a lawsuit against her ex-partner Shia LaBeouf
In December 2020 she filed a lawsuit against her ex-partner Shia LaBeouf, accusing the actor of physical, emotional and mental abuse that left her with PTSD. She accused him of threatening, trapping and choking her, as well as knowingly infecting her with an STD. They had met on the set of the film Honey Boy, and dated for almost a year, but the relationship turned dark. LaBeouf also allegedly banned her from looking other men in the eye, and threatened to crash a car unless she professed her love for him. In a response to FKA twigs’ suit, LaBeouf’s lawyers said the actor “denies, generally and specifically, each and every allegation” in the lawsuit.
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