In 2014, Sia recorded a solo version of “Elastic Heart” for her sixth studio album, 1000 Forms of Fear. It was released on 9 January 2015 by RCA as the fourth single from the album. Annie Zaleski from The AV Club labelled “Elastic Heart” a “striking power ballad,” while AllMusic’s Heather Phares picked the song as one of the three standouts from the album, alongside “Chandelier” and “Eye of the Needle”. Aimee Cliff from Fact named it a “great example of how only Sia can truly rock a song written for (rather than by) Sia.”

In Australia, “Elastic Heart” debuted at number 8 on the ARIA Singles Chart on the chart issue dated 19 January 2015. The following week, the song rose to number 5. In the United States, “Elastic Heart” debuted at number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the issue chart dated 24 January 2015, becoming the week’s “Hot Shot Debut”. It dropped 12 spots charting the following week at No. 29 and dropped to No. 32 the next week.

On 17 January 2015, Sia performed “Elastic Heart” on Saturday Night Live. For the performance, Sia sang the song with a short black veil covering her face, while Ziegler recreated the dance routine in the music video wearing a nude leotard and blonde wig.

On 7 January 2015, the music video for the song was released. Directed by Sia and Daniel Askill and choreographed by Ryan Heffington, The video features Maddie Ziegler, who previously appeared in the video for Sia’s single “Chandelier”, and actorShia LaBeouf. In the video, Ziegler and LaBeouf wear nude and dirt-smeared outfits.

Justine Harman from Elle likened the concept of the video to the plot of Titanic. Analysing the video’s content, Jason Lipshutz from Billboard summarised it this way: “The entirety of the video features the surprising pair interpreting the song through various body contortions: they dance-fight, collapse in the middle of the cage, crawl toward and away from each other, and make some wildly fantastic facial expressions.”

Upon its release, the visual faced criticism due to the depiction of a nearly naked adult and child dancing together, being accused of depicting images that may induce triggers to victims of pedophilia. Sia later apologised on Twitter: “All I can say is Maddie and Shia are two of the only actors I felt could play these two warring ‘Sia’ self states. I [apologise] to those who feel triggered by ‘Elastic Heart’. My intention was to create some emotional content, not to upset anybody.”