Lorde has come under fire after likening her friendship with Taylor Swift to spending time with someone with an autoimmune disease.

Speaking to The Guardian to mark the release of her second album, the singer discussed the challenges of being close to someone who is internationally famous. While she didn’t namecheck Taylor directly, her comments were taken to allude to the 1989 star.

“It’s like having a friend with very specific allergies. There are certain places you can’t go together. Certain things you can’t do,” she told the newspaper.

“There are these different sets of considerations within the friendship,” she continued. “It’s like having a friend with an autoimmune disease.”

Social media users were quick to point out the insensitivity of Lorde’s comments, with one Twitter user pointing out that Selena Gomez, another close friend of Taylor, suffers from lupus, an autoimmune disease.

“I wonder how Selena Gomez feels about this. What an incredibly ignorant analogy to make @lorde,” they wrote.

Admitting that her analogy had been severely misjudged, the singer responded to criticism, replying with: “Didn’t mention Taylor, but regardless, I f—ked up and that was really insensitive. I’m sorry.”

Elsewhere in her Guardian interview, the singer discussed how her famous friends have acted as a support network and helped her to navigate a career in the public eye.

“It’s an element of wanting to stick together,” she explained. “Because it can be so scary to do this. These friendships, they’re about having a hand put on your shoulder by someone who knows. They’re about hearing, ‘I’ve done it, too.'”

This post was written by Katie Rosseinsky. It originally appeared on our sister site, Grazia.

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