She Was a Punk, Now She's a Christian, Can I Make It Anymore Obvious?

Avril Lavigne is back and definitely not dead.

The Canadian pop-punk performer is Billboard’s current cover star and the interview is actually pretty interesting: Lavigne details her Christan rock comeback with her new single, “Head Above Water,” while skateboarding around a largely pink home and drinking rosé. She talks about both of her ex-husbands—Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger and Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley—and opens about the reason she’s been out of the public eye for many, many years: Lyme Disease. “She has to let us know she wasn’t left behind by a market in which hip-hop has largely displaced traditional pop and rock,” journalist Anna Peele writes, “She wasn’t over making music. She wasn’t mourning her divorce. She was annihilated by an infection.”

Lavigne started feeling unwell in 2014 and, as is common for many Lyme patients, went undiagnosed by doctors until a friend suggested she ask them about Lyme. Eventually Avril called The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Yolanda Hadid, who has been outspoken about her battle with the disease for many years. She put Lavigne in touch with a specialist. “I was in bed for fucking two years,” Avril says of the experience.

Then, one night, she remembers being in bed with her mother and struggling to breathe. “I had accepted that I was dying,” she tells Billboard. “And I felt in that moment like I was underwater and drowning, and I was trying to come up to gasp for air. And literally under my breath, I was like, ‘God, help me keep my head above the water.’ ” Thus, her new single and the pivot to Christian rock.