Last week a pair of liberated nipples almost burned the internet to the ground. As is perhaps mandatory if youre an interstellar pop star with a reputation for artisanal wackiness, Canadian musician Claire Grimes Boucher ushered in the new year by posting a photograph of herself in the buff (more or less) to Instagram. The image of a foetus in her womb was added in post-production. She later affixed the hashtag freethenipple.

Being knocked up is a very feral and war-like state of being, Boucher wrote. Might as well be what it is. Plus most of my friends told me not to post them so then I was afflicted with reverse psychology. Interrogated my shame on it and decided it was sum [sic] weird internalised self hatred to feel uncomfortable abt [sic] my body.

The snap was highly stylised. But Bouchers exposed nipples were very much raw and unvarnished. At least for a few hours Instagram inevitably removed the picture. So Boucher, who is 31,put up another, the offending bits and bobs obscured this time. Twenty-four hours later she was back on Instagram, cradling what appeared to be a pregnancy bump.

A dayglo snap of a semi-disrobed pop star is not that unusual, but one with a superimposed baby is. Was Grimes, whose new album, Miss Anthropocene, is released next month, announcing that she is expecting? If so, the father is probablyElon Musk, her partner of over two years. The Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Boucher have both, lately, become better known for theirpublic eccentricities than the day jobs that made them famous.

We say pop star. Grimes is, however, more accurately described as critical darling. She hasnt sold very many records but has enjoyed five star reviews since her breakthrough Visions LP in 2012. And since going public with her relationship with Musk, 48 at the 2018 Met Gala in New York she has found a second calling as one half of the influencer version of John and Yoko. The big question of course is: which of the couple is John and which Yoko?

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The pop princess and the billionaire: how Grimes and Elon Musk became the worlds strangest power couple - Telegraph.co.uk