IGGY’S BACKSTORY

Azalea was born Amethyst Amelia Kelly in Sydney, Australia, but when she was a child, her family moved to Mullumbimby, on the east coast, north of Byron Bay. “I come from a town that has 3,000 people in it and two streets. No one wears high heels—in fact, people often don’t even wear shoes. It’s not weird to be in the supermarket and see someone without shoes.” When she was 11, her grandparents took her and her sister on a trip to California, which Azalea describes as life changing. “It was just so ridiculous and crazy. It was like everything I had seen in the movies. There are no limits in America, and I like that because I’m a very ridiculous person.” Rap music came into her life shortly after, and by 16 she had dropped out of school and decided that the United States was where she needed to be. She landed a job cleaning houses with the goal of saving enough money to get to Miami. “I basically spent my last year in Australia being psychotically obsessed with saving money to go to America. It was very planned out: How much money do I need to get there? How much money will I need for food?” Azalea has now lived in the United States for almost a decade and currently lives in L.A. with her fiancé, Los Angeles Laker Nick Young. “There’s a lot going on here—and it’s way more complex than when I was 14 and living in Australia. But I still love it, and I will live here forever. It’s complicated, but it’s worth it.”