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Lorde Looks Like A 'Royal' Babe In These New Bikini Photos

Lorde Bikini Photo

EXCLUSIVE: Seventeen year old New Zealand singing sensation Lorde, real name Ella Yelich O'Connor, at a beach in Auckland with boyfriend James Lowe on November 22, 2013.

[Photo Credit: Splash News]

EXCLUSIVE: Singer Lorde at the beach with boyfriend

Seventeen year old New Zealand singing sensation Lorde, real name Ella Yelich O'Connor, at a beach in Auckland with boyfriend James Lowe on November 22, 2013.

[Photo Credit: Splash News]

EXCLUSIVE: Singer Lorde at the beach with boyfriend

Seventeen year old New Zealand singing sensation Lorde, real name Ella Yelich O'Connor, at a beach in Auckland with boyfriend James Lowe on November 22, 2013.

[Photo Credit: Splash News]

Lorde Bikini

Seventeen year old New Zealand singing sensation Lorde, real name Ella Yelich O'Connor, at a beach in Auckland with boyfriend James Lowe on November 22, 2013.

[Photo Credit: Splash News]

One of the many reasons to love Lorde is that she doesn't follow the normal rules that seem to govern most of today's pop stars. Her album is wholly bereft of that whole Euro-Trance sound that has been dominating radio for the last few years, she's not constantly posting duck-face selfies to her Instagram feed, and instead of covering "of the moment" songs to gain buzz, she instead prefers to channel Dio or Sheryl Crow. That said, now that she's established herself as one of the breakout stars of 2013, it's only a matter time before the paparazzi start crawling around.

To wit, these pics of the 17-year-old You Oughta Know artist (real name Ella Yelich O'Connor) relaxing on a beach in Auckland with her boyfriend James Lowe just arrived on the scene. She's still a bit of a mystery in the eyes of the public-at-large, so seeing her hug her boyfriend and splash around in the surf like a normal teenager definitely helps you remember that this intense, fascinating musical talent is in a lot of ways, to borrow the parlance of US Weekly, *just like us.*

Speaking of Lorde, the video for her latest single, "Team," just dropped, too. Much like in "Royals," she plays up her role as the Queen Bee of disaffected youth. "This video was borne from a dream I had a few months ago about teenagers in their own world, a world with hierarchies and initiations, where the boy who was second in command had acne on his face, and so did the girl who was queen," Lorde explained on her Facebook page. You'll be happy to learn that not a single one of the teenagers in the video throws their hands up in the air ... so there!

[mtvn_player vid="984307"]

[Photo Credit: Splash News]