Writing music and building her career among an active life of best friends, good dogs and an adoring partner, the empathetic star seems to steal the show both in front of the lens and on stages around the world. Dialing in from her childhood home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the soulful songstress details everything from growing up gay, to working with Fiona Apple to how microdosing mushrooms changed her whole perspective.

BUDS DIGEST: Hi KP! Thank you so much for joining us. You did a photoshoot in LA with a very special photographer, Daniel Cavanaugh. The shots are so cool.

KING PRINCESS: It was fun. You guys gave me a big doobie! It was nice.

BD: It’s one of our favorite photoshoots that has come out of doing this magazine.

KP: Your stuff — it's so amazing. I love the John Early/Kate Berlant energy. So cool.

BD: You saw Kate's show the other night.

KP: It's so good. Me, my friend Connor and my girlfriend went and were obviously indeed high. I said to Kate after, that I loved being high for it because, in the show, she's breaking the fourth wall, but she's also telling her life story, but then also going into characters. It was the perfect format to just be absolutely zoinked and enjoy somebody's antics. It was so delightful and smart.

BD: It's truly a great, great stoner experience. Buds is based here in North Brooklyn. We know that you grew up in this same area too, in Williamsburg. What was that experience like?

KP: I was at a dinner last night and somebody asked me where I grew up. I told them Williamsburg and they were like, “Whooaa.” It is trippy. I'm back. I'm actually in Williamsburg right now at the house that I grew up in. I live here part-time. Nobody lives here, so I took it over. I pay my mom rent, which I love. My “laand-lohrd.” It was really interesting because it was a suburban upbringing, but adjacent to the city. There were a couple other families that were artists with children. Then really dope Irish and Polish families, generational families that have lived in Brooklyn forever. All the kids played together and there was a lot of playing in the street, going to the park and playing soccer. It was very industrial looking and not very green and you know, obviously looks like the city but it felt like a suburb. It was so quiet. 

BD: It was so different at that time, particularly to what it is now.

KP: It was special to me because it was like growing up in a little town.

BD: What was your consciousness of weed back then? Were you smelling it on the streets? Did your friends use it?

KP: I'm actually sitting next to my best friend right now. We began our weed journeys together at age 14. You would smell the kushy-kushy everywhere you walked, and that is still the case. We had a dealer and you had to get in a van. We just got in this man’s van. No, not even a van, it was like a Toyota Corolla with a bum tire. We would get in there and we'd be like, “Do you have it?” And he would hand you a bag of weed. There were no questions to be asked; what strain is this, where is this from?

BD: Freaky.

KP: We were afraid, but we knew we were doing something wrong because it was obviously not legalized. We would just get this weed and then we would sit on my roof and smoke and then like, you know, eat food. I was much more interested in smoking weed at that point in my life than really doing anything else. Except for music…

BD: Were you smoking and listening to music? Were you smoking and playing music?

KP: We smoked weed and listened to music a lot. We smoked weed and sang songs together. We smoked weed and watched a lot of tv. I feel like a lot of kids, when I got to high school, were very much like, [faux-euro-new-yorker-accent] “Let's go to clubs. We have fake I.D. Let's go to club with promoter.” I felt like, I don’t think I'm femme enough to wear a bandage dress and get into this club right now. So I was like, I think I'm just gonna smoke weed on my roof instead.

BD: Were you living out at all and dating women?

KP: Oh yeah, I was gay as the day is long. I was out and gay pretty early on in my life. From the time that I got to high school, I was out, not even by choice. I was just so gay. But, there were no questions. I think I maybe pretended to be straight for like six to eight months and then everyone was like, wait a second, that's a gay! I also don't know if I knew fully how to express myself, gender-wise. That part was still confusing, but I knew I liked girls. I think what I did enjoy about sitting and listening to music and smoking weed and looking up cool shit on the internet, was that it did kind of begin my journey into art and art history when it comes to pop culture; clothes that I thought were cool and people I wanted to emulate. Weed was kind of a catalyst for a lot of that self-research.

BD: Do you use cannabis in your current writing process?

KP: Not as much. I went through a period of time when I moved to LA where I was just like, wait a second, weed is legal and is really crazy good out here. I smoked every single day, morning, noon and night for like four years. And then I took a break for a whole year because I just didn’t really know what it was like to not be high. I think my relationship got a little more codependent where I was like, I am high all the fucking time. I think when you're high all the time, there's a chance, which is what happened to me, that your brain is just like, no, now you're paranoid; you've outdone it – there's too much smoking going on and now we're gonna make you paranoid. And now I smoke very much recreationally. I also smoke in the studio, but mostly just hit my pen maybe once or twice. I don't rip doobies anymore when I make music. Because I think I like the way my brain works without substances. I like the way my brain works in the studio when I'm on it. I think that there's days where I'm like, oh, this could be a fun stone-y day. And then there's days where I'm like, no, I really need to like not be stoned and focus on this.

BD: I think we all feel the same way.

KP: But back in the day, I was just: bong. I was giving bong.

BD: It is a natural product and we do have a natural cannabinoid system in our body, so it makes sense that it works so well. But, it also lets you know when maybe it's time to take a tolerance break.

KP: My tolerance is back to being a teenager. I get so high now. I'm kinda back to like, “Guys, I'm really high.”

BD: Who are you with right now, KP?

KP: I'm with two people right now. I'm with my friend Ceciley, who I grew up with. We met in high school. We have been friends since and she lives around the corner. And then my friend Connor, who kind of lives on my couch-vibes. But, not in a sad way. He has a home too. He's a very talented photographer. We've decided he just has selective narcolepsy,

BD: I love that you've brought the entourage. Super cool.

KP: Well, I've just woken so…

BD: I thought maybe you'd be with Quinn at the moment.

KP: My gorgeous, gorgeous girl has left the state of New York to return to LA because we both have work to do. I leave tomorrow, but she left today – early. She took one of our dogs and I have the other one. So, I will be flying with my 50 pound dog tomorrow and best believe we will both be high for that.

BD: I love the references in your music to your relationships and your references to growing up. In your mid twenties, you experience a lot of change. What is the process like writing all that down for an album? Or talking about these people in songs? Does it feel exposing?

KP: It does to some degree. I think I had to come to terms with the fact that when I made music as a kid, I was making music for myself as therapy. When I make music now, because I've released music, there becomes a new element of writing not only for yourself, but for people who you think will like it or wanna listen to it. I think what I've been trying to focus on for the music I'm writing now – but also the last record – is that, being introspective is amazing and I think really important, but there's a lot of beauty and simplicity in writing for the masses while also writing about yourself, not getting too specific. I'm kind of taking a break from referencing people directly that I love, with names. I feel like that's a lot.

BD: There's a couple songs on Hold on Baby that really invite the listener in because of that quality.

KP: In the moment you're not even thinking about it. You're writing a song and you're just like, Oh, Quinn, oh Quinn, I love you. And that's like the lyrics. That’s what you're feeling. It makes sense to me to just throw that in because there's really nothing else to be said, you know?

But writing music is essentially like solving a little puzzle; doing a Jenga. You're pulling out all the extraneous parts where the tower's still stable, you know? You have to be concise. I love that part of writing because it's a challenge. You want these little moments that hold the structure but nothing too much because then it's just, you know, bulky.

BD: Well, you're getting very good at that puzzle. Another professional-personal collaboration you've had, which would very much intrigue our readers to hear about, is your relationship with Fiona Apple.

KP: Oh yeah…Fifi.

BD: When did you guys first meet?

KP: I worked on something for Spotify called the Spotify Rise Artist. It was a really beautiful experience. I got to do a little short film with all my friends about playing dress up and having community and queerness; very silly, very sweet, but also genuine. I talked to different generations of queer people in it and got their perspective. Part of that campaign was to do a song with somebody that you wanna do a song with. It could be a cover. It could be a new song. It could be anything. My A&R guy was like, “What about Fiona Apple?” And I was like, “Um, okay, a very bold suggestion. Love it. But, do you know her? How is that gonna work?” She does her thing. I know she lives in Venice. She does not fuck with being in the spotlight. She just makes her art and does her thing. I didn't know all that, but I knew that she was not an outward facing public person. You wouldn't see her at a party or something.

BD: She’s an incredibly original artist. 

KP: I also didn't know that much about her music. I knew her music kind of peripherally but not in depth the way I know it now. Then, all of a sudden I get this text. It's just a video of her, of her face. She says, “Hey Michaela, it's Fiona. I heard we're supposed to do something together. Do you wanna do a song? I don't know if you know who I am…” 

BD: That’s amazing.

KP: I had just gotten dumped. So this was jarring for many reasons. I sent her a video back and I was like, “I am so sad. I just had my heart broken.” And she was like, “come to Venice.” So, I went. We smoked weed and talked. She kind of became this confidant for me. This was before we even made anything. We just talked and hung. It was me, her, her friend Zelda and both of their dogs. We would just hang out and talk regularly. I just feel really privileged and lucky to have people in my life, like Fiona, who I can call and ask for help. I'm young and I'm in this industry and she’s done all this and she's there for me in that way. It's really cool.