Phoebe Bridgers is opening up about her relationship with her mother, Jaime Bridgers, and her mother’s favorite NSFW joke about her.
The 28-year-old shared how close she is to her mother during Friday’s episode of Amelia Dimoldenberg’s YouTube interview series Chicken Shop Dates. During their conversation, the host asked Bridgers what her mother’s “best joke” about her is.
In response, Phoebe said her mother has a “bit” about what “love means to her.”
“She tells a story about me sending her a photo of my crotch and saying: ‘Is this herpes?’” the “Scott Street” singer recalled. “And she’s like: ‘That’s what love is, the intimacy to ask me that.’”
Over the years, Phoebe has opened up about her bond with her mother. In March, Jaime appeared on stage at the Billboard Music Awards to present her daughter with the Trailblazer Award. This honour is given to “a female artist helping innovate in the industry to create space for future generations of women in music,” as noted by Billboard.
During her acceptance speech, the songwriter dedicated the award to Jaime and expressed how grateful she was to her.
“But mostly, this is for my mom, who waited outside of venues in her car for hours in the middle of the night in the smell in downtown LA to make sure I got home safe from shows,” Phoebe said. “She made me feel like the second coming of Bob Dylan, even when my lyrics were really, really, really bad.”
The “Funeral” singer then went on to talk about her mother’s experience with domestic abuse and how she asked her if she could talk about it while on stage.
“She was like: ‘Yeah, totally. It’s your experience, too. Go for it,” Phoebe continued. “And I was like: ‘Cool. I’m going to say something like: ‘Thank you to my mom for surviving unimaginable abuse and violence.’ And she was like: ‘But it is imaginable. Too many people can imagine it.’ So thank you, mom, for showing me how to survive.”
Elsewhere during her conversation with Dimoldenberg, Bridgers opened up about her relationship with her father. She recalled how she once ate a bite of cigarette ash and tobacco in one of his cups, noting that it was the “worst thing” she ever tasted.
“My dad had it in the cup holder in a water bottle and I was a kid and I grabbed it and I chugged it before realising what it was,” she said.
Dimoldenberg then asked if she still wanted to “kill” her dad, referring to Phoebe’s emotional song, “Kyoto”, that talks about the singer’s strained relationship with him. In the song, the lyrics mentions how she felt like she wanted to “kill” him before she “beat” her to it.
In response to Dimoldenberg’s question, Phoebe said “no.”
