Nelly Furtado has announced she’s stepping away from performing her music for the “foreseeable future.”
The shared the career update via an Instagram post shared on Friday, October 24, and reflected on her 25-year career.
“25 years ago today my first album Whoa, Nelly! was released,” Furtado, 46, wrote in the lengthy caption.
Alongside throwback photos from the past two decades, Furtado reflected on the early days of her career.
“25 years later., my music has reached a whole new generation of fans and I couldn’t be happier about that,” she added. “In the year 2000 I remember feeling purpose in hoping some kid would dust off the Whoa, Nelly ! vinyl one day in a record shop and think it was cool or inspiring , so I never could have guessed that there would be so many new ways to discover “old” music in 2025!”
Furtado opened up about how happy she felt about so many people listening to her music over the various decades before announcing her plans to step away from the stage.
“To have so many people rediscovering my music has been surreal and joyful . It’s been so fun embracing this opportunity , getting out on stages again and seeing up close , the true lasting power of good music . It’s made me really believe in magic,” she wrote.
Furtado continued, “All this aside , I have decided to step away from performance for the foreseeable future and pursue some other creative and personal endeavours that I feel would better suit this next phase of my life. I have enjoyed my career immensely , and I still love writing music as I have always seen it as a hobby I was lucky enough to make into a career . I’ll identify as a songwriter forever.”
The “Maneater” singer concluded the post by sharing her gratitude for her fans, her collaborators and anyone else who helped her make her “pop dreams come true.”
“I’m grateful for all the years of fun , community and wonder,” she wrote. “Endless gratitude to anyone who has ever listened and vibrated with my music and attended any of my shows . I love you and your open hearts.
Earlier this year, Furtado spoke about how the pressures of her career affected how she is expected to look.
Hitting back at body-shamers, the “Say it Right” singer candidly spoke about self-love via an empowering Instagram post.
“This year I became aware of the aesthetic pressure of my work in a brand new way, while simultaneously I experienced new levels of self-love and genuine confidence from within,” she wrote in the post’s caption. “For whoever cares, I have never had any face or body surgeries or augmentation, besides for veneers on the top row of my teeth, quite recently.”
In the post, Furtado also denied ever having “face or lip injections or fillers.”
“My New Year’s message for 2025, is express yourself freely, celebrate your individuality and know that it’s perfectly OK to be OK with what you see in the mirror, and it’s also OK to want something different,” she continued. “We are all cute little humans just bouncing around the earth looking for hugs.”
