Prepare To Cringe At ‘The Project’s Woefully Awkward Maggie Rogers Interview

Maggie Rogers is an extraordinarily talented young performer — a young pop artist leading a new revolution in contemporary music.

But you wouldn’t know that from watching most interviews with her. In fact, if you tuned into The Project last night, where Rogers appeared as part of the promo leg of her Australian tour, you’d think the only thing remarkable about the artist is that she met Pharrell Williams a few times.

Certainly Williams plays a role in the artist’s life story. In 2016, as part of a masterclass with the ‘Happy’ singer, Rogers wrote a song about her time spent with the National Outdoor Leadership School called ‘Alaska’. When she played it for him, Williams was visibly moved — a video of the exchange went viral on YouTube, and Rogers’ ascendency began.

So sure, talking about Williams was relevant, once upon a time, when that was the defining episode in the life of the performer. But it’s resolutely not anymore — since then, her album Heard It In a Past Life debuted on the Billboard Hottest 200 chart in the second spot, and she’s performed on both The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live.

But none of that was of any interest to the folks over at The Project, apparently, who only wanted to press Rogers on what a man that she met two or three times smelt like.

note to future journalists- I have no idea what pharrell smells like. pic.twitter.com/npB4cVXoUR

— Maggie Rogers (@maggierogers) May 22, 2019

“I have spoken to Pharrell a total of three times after that,” Rogers said after questions about whether she had dined with the singer, her smile clearly and politely signalling that it was probably time to move on. Which should have been obvious anyway — by this stage, she’d already repeatedly mentioned that she had “no relationship whatsoever” with the singer.

But then the questions kept coming.

“Did he smell good? ‘Cause I reckon he looks like he’d smell good.”

“So, in that video, that’s about as close as we’ve ever gotten,” Rogers replied, the picture of good grace. “But he did have perfect skin.”

You can watch the whole thing here, if you want to, but be warned — it is a lot: