Chrissie Hynde: “I don’t mind getting older. I do mind getting uglier”
In a new interview, The Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde responded to a question about career regrets, saying, “I don’t mind getting older. I do mind getting uglier.”
In an expansive discussion with The Guardian, where she took questions from fans and famous faces such as Paul McCartney and Johnny Marr, Hynde looked back on her long career. At one point, she was asked by an American fan, Jane, from Texas, if she has any regrets about things left undone.
Hynde responded: “I don’t mind getting older. I do mind getting uglier. Come on, there’s only one thing we know of that is definitely going to happen to us. That’s all the information we have in this life. You know, a lot of my friends didn’t get old. I’m not a worrier, by nature – and there are so many great things about getting older.”
She continued: “For example, I don’t think there’s very many things that I know now that I didn’t know when I was 16 – but there’s a big difference between knowing something and realising it. Realising something takes 50 years. I’m more relaxed now, if you can believe it. This is the real mellow version of me. Ageing is like being a pothead again. Though that’s not to say there are not things that wind me up daily.”
Elsewhere in the chat, former Beatles member Paul McCartney asked The Pretenders leader, “You’re from Akron, Ohio, why don’t you eat meat?”
Hynde explained: “Akron wasn’t a farming place, it was full of tyre factories. It was known as the rubber capital of the world. Why don’t I eat meat? Gosh, it’s been so long now. There wasn’t a moment. It started back in hippy days. I heard the word “vegetarian” and thought about it for about a minute, and decided, yeah. I was 16 or 17.”
She said: “Since then I’ve gone to jail because of it, I’ve been in Peta for many years. I had a vegan restaurant at one point. It’s what made me friends with Linda [McCartney]. But why? Well, because I don’t see any reason to kill an animal if I don’t have to – if an animal is trying to kill me, well, maybe. But my real question is: why does anybody do that if they don’t have to? It blows my mind every day of my life.”
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