NEED TO KNOW
- Nelly Furtado announces she is stepping back from performing songs to focus on other aspects of her life
- Her announcement came via social media on the 25th anniversary of her first studio album, Whoa, Nelly!
- “I’ll identify as a songwriter forever,” the Grammy winner said
Nelly Furtado is taking some time away from the stage.
In a statement shared to social media Friday, Oct. 24, the “Maneater” singer, 46, said she is putting performing on hold “for the foreseeable future [to] pursue some other creative and personal endeavours that I feel would better suit this next phase of my life.”
She posted a two-photo carousel beginning with a picture of her younger self at 20 years old, about to perform at her “first show as a professional artist at Lilith Fair.”
The next slide was a video of her onstage in Berlin this past summer, “finally understanding what receiving flowers means” as the crowd chanted her name.
While reflecting on her first performance, Furtado remembered buying the pink dress from a store called Original on Queen West in Toronto, and also picking up some sparkly platform shoes for the monumental moment.
“It was so meaningful and my artist self felt so actualized,” she wrote.
“25 years later, my music has reached a whole new generation of fans and I couldn’t be happier about that,” she said while celebrating the 25th anniversary of her first album, Whoa, Nelly!
The “Promiscuous Girl” singer said when her album debuted, her biggest wish back then was “hoping some kid would dust off the Whoa, Nelly! vinyl one day in a record shop and think it was cool or inspiring.”
“So I never could have guessed that there would be so many new ways to discover ‘old’ music in 2025!” Furtado said.
She went on to share her gratitude for having “so many people rediscovering” her music, which she called “surreal and joyful.”
The “Say It Right” singer added that seeing her fans “up close” has “made me really believe in magic.”
“I have enjoyed my career immensely, and I still love writing music as I have always seen it as a hobby I was lucky enough to make into a career. I’ll identify as a songwriter forever,” Furtado said.
The Grammy winner thanked “anyone who has ever listened and vibrated with my music and attended any of my shows” as well as “those who have worked so hard to help me make my pop dreams come true.”
Nelly Furtado at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on April 15, 2024.
Gregg DeGuire/Variety via Getty
“I also wish, to the new generation of artists, many years of fruitful and passionate performance,” she wrote.
Furtado spoke exclusively to PEOPLE about her love for the younger generation in a September 2024 interview, noting how “the Gen Z’s singing all the words blew my brain” during a festival performing in Australia.
“I went, ‘Whoa, this is real. This is not just a fun app. This is my music reconnecting. This is a big deal,’ ” she said.
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Furtado released 7, her first album in seven years, in September 2024. She recorded the album with her daughter Nevis Gahunia, 22.
“I’d been given this opportunity to connect with my teenager in this way. It just felt like the greatest gift in the world,” Furtado told PEOPLE of the years-long process. “What a blessing.”
