Why Ava Maxs lopsided Max Cut is back: I feel more like myself now

In Ava Max‘s new video for her single “Lovin’ Myself,” she’s showing off her signature Max Cut, with one side of her blond hair cut shorter than the other. After retiring that style, she brought it back in April, cutting it live onstage at Coachella.

She tells People, “I love my lopsided hair. I felt like I wasn’t myself without it, and I found that out after I cut it at Coachella because I feel more like myself now.” As for why she stopped wearing her hair like that, she reveals, “I let the comments get to me the last two years, and I changed who I was for other people.”

“I took away the Max Cut essentially because people in the industry didn’t like it. People I was working with didn’t like it, and I was just like, ‘You know what? I’m just going to get rid of it if it’s that bad,"” she continues. “Then, I realized that it was 1% of the population that didn’t like it, and I loved it. I was like, ‘Wait. The masses love it, and it doesn’t make any sense for me to get rid of something when I feel so strongly about it.’”

As for letting comments get to her, she pokes fun at that in her new video for “Lovin’ Myself,” from her upcoming album, Don’t Click Play. She’s seen wearing a sleeping mask that reads, “Ava Max sucks.”

She tells People, “It’s about all the comments I read about not clicking play on my music. ‘Don’t listen to Ava Max. Ava Max sucks.’ I just wanted to put that in the music video to show that I’m embracing it, and I don’t care what you say because what people say doesn’t affect me. I’m still loving myself, even if you think I suck.”