What would you give for your art? Okay, now, what would you give for an Apple commercial directed by Spike Jonze? In a recent i-D interview about her upcoming sophomore album, Magdalene, FKA Twigs reveals that her stitches from a recent uterine surgery tore open while she was dancing in a 2018 Apple commercial directed by Spike Jonze. “You’re meant to wait six weeks after surgery before you start walking, let alone dancing,†the singer explained. “When I was on set with Spike, the stitches in my bellybutton were splitting open. I told him: ‘Just so you know, if I start bleeding through this white shirt …’ I basically couldn’t lift my arms up, because all your organs stick together and you can’t stretch your stomach.â€
The problem began when FKA Twigs signed on to dance in the viral ad under the assumption that she’d have another month to recuperate from the procedure she’d had four weeks previously, to remove tumors from her uterus. Instead, the turnaround time was one week. “I wasn’t supposed to be moving,†Twigs recalls. “And Spike’s like, ‘Okay, so we’re gonna play the song and I need you to dance around your living room to it’. I was fully going for it and literally feeling like my uterus was gonna fall out. I didn’t tell them about the surgery or that I had all these stitches in my bellybutton. It was grim. It was grim as fuck.â€
Fortunately, as the piece’s choreographer as well as its performer, the singer was able to modify the dance number to prevent, well, whatever horrible nightmare situation occurs when your surgical stitches completely rip open on the set of an Apple commercial. “I was involved in the choreography though, so I based all the movements on Audrey Hepburn as she was always moving like that — very forward and with a contracted stomach — because that’s all I could do,†says Twigs. As suggested by her even more intensely physical recent work, FKA Twigs has since made a full recovery.