Another successful Kiwi is urging Lorde to leave New Zealand. After former model Charlotte Dawson said that their home country would just crush the 17-year-old rising star’s spirit if she stayed, legendary musician Neil Finn has also advised Lorde to leave the country.

Finn, like Dawson, does not have an issue with New Zealand itself, but the media, which he suspects would make the whole celebrity experience bad for Lorde.

“Those news teams are idiots,” he said to The Guardian, referring to the media’s welcome to Lorde upon her return to the country.

Lorde has called the media’s welcome to her at the airport “a bit sad” after photographers and reporters pushed her and her family just to get a shot or a word from her.

“New Zealand had, up until that moment, been quite a good environment [for her] because people are not super celebrity-oriented, they pretty much leave you alone. But it keeps reaching this new critical mass and now with winning two Grammys, I think it’s getting pretty intense,” Finn continued.

Finn, who has an OBE, has reached international success as a member of the bands Spit Enz and Crowded House. So if there’s anyone who knows what would be best for Lorde as an emerging international superstar, Finn’s a good candidate.

“I’d think she might go well moving to New York or something, where there are more famous people and less bother about it. It wouldn’t be a bad move to get among the centre of operations,” he said.

Dawson has had a similar advice for Lorde, which she gave via Newstalk ZN’s Mike Hosking in late January.

“Unless you’re very mediocre, you need to get out of there. You just have to if you want to keep succeeding because otherwise it will just crush your spirit,” she said.

The “Australia’s Next Top Model” judge, who left New Zealand at 16 to model in Europe, condemned the media , saying they will just make her life difficult.

“It’s just that the media are going to give her a very, very hard time and my advice is she’s going to have to leave New Zealand.”

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