Pop star Marina says she has "lost" her ego now.
The 33-year-old singer has just released her new album ‘Love + Fear’, which is her first studio effort since 2015’s ‘Froot’ and the first record released under her new singular Marina moniker as her previous three records were credited to Marina and the Diamonds.
As well as dropping her old stage name, Marina – whose real name is Marina Diamandis – has dropped her ego about her music, even though her attitude shift worried her at first.
In an interview with Gay Times magazine, she said: "A lot of my motives were coming from a place of ego as opposed to creativity or love, but then I lost that feeling and it worried me because I thought all artists have big egos, or at least really good ones do. I thought, if I don’t have that feeling anymore, maybe it means I’m not a good artist and I should just stop."
‘Love + Fear’ – which features the song ‘Baby’, her collaboration with her boyfriend Jack Patterson’s band Clean Bandit – is split into two eight-song collections, with each collection exploring psychologist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ theory that humans are only capable of experiencing those two emotions.
Marina has also toned down her "stylised" image now she is older and more comfortable in herself.
She said: "A shift took place and it just felt like that identity had taken over, everything stopped feeling fun. I just didn’t feel comfortable any more with this very stylised persona that I was building with my imagery."
The ‘Primadonna’ hitmaker also opened up about her attitude to online trolls, and claims many men want to hurl abuse at strong women because they want to "silence" them.
She said: "When a woman uses her voice in public or speaks up, men send abuse to that female figure. What matter is you’re saying something, and they basically want to silence you."