Rise to Fame
He didn't know he could sing until he filled in at a high school battle of the bands competition. Within a year, Katy Perry was telling him he could win American Idol. He quit anyway, not wanting that to be his origin story, and signed with Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons, who flew him to Las Vegas to write songs. 'Beautiful Things' came out in January 2024, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, and saw its average daily Spotify streams surge 370 percent in under two months. He'd been singing for roughly four years at that point.
In the Spotlight
He's become the pop star who happens to do backflips, and that spectacle is now part of his identity. He backflipped off a grand piano at the 2025 Grammys, where he earned a Best New Artist nomination, and has pulled the same move off stages, desks, and on a Tonight Show appearance. At 23, he's touring arenas on the back of his debut album Fireworks & Rollerblades, trying to prove 'Beautiful Things' was a foundation, not a ceiling.
Side Notes
He grew up in Monroe, Washington, raised in a devout Mormon household, attended BYU-Idaho for a semester, and dropped out to pursue music. He's since stepped away from the Church, though he still doesn't drink or do drugs. He's also been doing backflips since preschool, long before anyone cared about his voice, which explains why the two things ended up welded together as a package.