Lorde gains Croatian citizenship

New Zealand popstar Lorde has officially taken up Croatian citizenship.

The Royals singer's mother Sonja is from a Croatian family who emigrated to New Zealand and she revealed she had used her parental connection to gain dual-citizenship.

In an interview on Marc Maron's WTF podcast the 20-year-old musician said, "So yeah, I'm Croatian, I got Croatian citizenship."

Lorde, whose real name is Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, admitted her celebrity status may have helped her speed up the process.

"I am a bit of a fancy, famous Croatian. I think not every Croatian gets that, they hooked me up so to speak," she explained.

Last month (Aug17), the star met Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic during a visit to New Zealand, and the politician posted a picture of herself with Lorde on her official Facebook page.

Opening up about her heritage the 20-year-old singer explained, "There are actually like a 100,000 Croatian-Yugoslav people in New Zealand and lots of them have been there for a long time. There is a lot of wine (in New Zealand), the Dalmatians (those originally from Dalmatia in Croatia) drink a lot of wine down there."

Other stars with Croatian heritage include Hollywood actors John Malkovich and Eric Bana as well as Nirvana co-founder Krist Novoselic.

Lorde is set to begin a world tour in support of her album Melodrama later this month (Sep17).

Despite her decision to take up citizenship, she does not currently have any Croatian tour dates scheduled, but the singer will return to her native New Zealand in November (17) for a run of seven concerts.