Norwegian indie-pop sensation Girl In Red has announced that she has postponed her forthcoming UK and European tour at the behest of several medical professionals, who have concluded that the singer has caused damage to her vocal cords.

Girl In Red (real name Marie Ulven Ringheim) recently finished an extensive US tour, and was only three shows into her European tour when she was unfortunately forced to postpone the remainder of it. Ringheim stated: “He told me that singing would increasingly get harder for me, but because I didn’t want to disappoint everyone coming to my EU/UK shows, I left for the tour two days later…Today I saw another specialist in London, who strongly advised me to go back home, see a speech therapist and essentially relearn the way I speak and use my voice. If not, I might have to get surgery.”

She went on to say: “I don’t want to cancel any more shows. I don’t want to be perceived as an artist or person that can’t do what they set out to do…This tour was postponed because of COVID and knowing how excited you guys were to see me, makes this a really fucking hard decision to make. I seriously cannot stress how much this breaks my heart. I feel an overwhelming sense of letting you guys down, but as of right now, it’s out of my control. What I do have control over is what I can do moving forward, and I’m going to do everything I can to avoid this ever happening again. I love you.”

Presently, Girl In Red is presently set to support Billie Eilish at London’s O2 in June, and is also slated to appear at numerous summer festivals such as Glastonbury and Øya Festival in Oslo, Norway. Given the immediacy of some of these shows, it is unfortunately quite possible that Ringheim will have to reschedule these dates in light of this recent medical issue in addition to her current tour. Presently, nothing concrete has been confirmed.

Ringheim began writing music as Girl In Red in 2015, and released her first single “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend” under the moniker the following year, which reached five thousand streams over five months. The single featured on a Norwegian website called NRK Urort, which led to Ringheim amassing an impressive online following. The singer-songwriter has since gone on to release two extended plays entitled Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, and in April 2021, released her first full-length If I Could Make it Go Quiet. You can stream Girl In Red’s music on all available digital platforms.

Photo Credit: Jonathan Kise/Grand Stand Media