Lorde Comes Face to Face With Real-Life Inspiration for 'Royals'

With its lyrics about "Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece, jet planes, islands and tigers on a gold leash," it may surprise you to learn that Lorde's monster hit "Royals" wasn't inspired by P. Diddy or some other bling-loving rapper, but legendary baseball player George Brett.

Now, after months of near-misses, Lorde, 17, and Brett, 60, have connected. The two finally met on Tuesday in Las Vegas, following Lorde's concert at the Cosmopolitan Hotel.

Brett called the meeting "awesome" and described the Grammy winner as "such a sweet little girl." Speaking to TMZ, the baseball legend said he had a crash course in Lorde music before the meeting: "I actually downloaded her music off iTunes and listened to in on the plane ride to Vegas."

The Hall of Fame third baseman played from 1973-1993 for the Kansas City Royals, but retired long before Ella Marija Lani "Lorde" Yelich-O'Conner was born on Nov. 7, 1996. So how exactly did the young songstress, who grew up in New Zealand, end up learning about Brett?

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Turns out Lorde used to collect old National Geographic magazines and was inspired by a photo published in the magazine in July 1976 of Brett, wearing his Royals jersey, greeted by a swarm of fans holding out baseballs requesting his autograph.

In an interview last year with VH1, Lorde explained how she "had this image from National Geographic of this dude just signing baseballs. He was a baseball player and his shirt said, 'Royals.' It was just that word. It's really cool."

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Lorde met Brett had hoped to meet up in Kansas City, before her show there (Brett now works in the team's front office), but their schedules didn't match up.

Although Brett couldn't make Lorde's Kansas City gig, he did send the "Team" singer a special gift — an autographed jersey with the inscription, "Lorde, you are Royal to me." It looks as if the feeling is mutual.

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