Grimes Name Change: Everything to Know About Its "Speed of Light" Meaning

The rabid fascination surrounding Grimes and Elon Musk’s relationship doesn’t look like it will be slowing down any time soon. Following their appearance together at the Met Gala earlier this month, Grimes announced last week that she is now changing her name thanks to some encouragement from her new billionaire boyfriend.

Last Thursday, the award-winning electronic artist announced on Twitter that she was changing her name to “c” — italicized and lowercased. It’s apparently a reference to the constant for the speed of light. According to the theory of special relativity, which covers the relationship between space and time, c is the max speed that all matter as we know it can travel in the universe. Kind of a big deal. You may recall it from Einstein’s famous formula of mass-energy equivalence: E = mc2.

Grimes’s appropriation of the letter also conveniently plays off of her own name, Claire Boucher, which she has reportedly wanted to change forever. “Claire has been the bane of my existence since i became sentient… i can barely say it w my speech impediment altho c is technically worse 4 lisp haha,” she tweeted Thursday.

When a Twitter user asked whether the name change was influenced by Musk, she replied it was, kind of.

“Well he’s the one who pointed out that my working nickname (c) actually rox and i don’t need to look further (been trying 2 change name 4ever but couldn’t find a gud 1, but my friends call me c }” she said.

Does this mean it’s time for the Artist Formerly Known as Grimes? Nope. In response to queries from fans, the pop star tweeted that it was simply a legal name change; Grimes isn’t going anywhere.

Musk and Grimes, known awkwardly to the internet as “Grusk” until someone thinks of something better, made their debut at the Met Gala earlier this month. The red carpet moment set of an explosion of memes as the internet tried to come to terms with the surprising new couple.

It’s only been a couple of weeks, and we’ve already seen Musk publicly slam Spotify over its low payout to artists like his musician GF, while Grimes has literally embarked upon changing her name. Grusk might be weird, but nobody can say they’re boring.