Rise to Fame
A Disney Channel kid dropping a devastatingly specific breakup song in January 2021 wasn't supposed to break Spotify. 'drivers license' pulled 17 million daily streams within its first week and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the youngest artist ever to enter the chart at the top at 17. SOUR followed and spent five weeks at No. 1, the third best-selling US album of 2021. Three Grammys in 2023. The song worked because it wasn't polished. It sounded exactly like something you'd write in your notes app at 2am.
In the Spotlight
GUTS (2023) made the harder case: she wasn't a one-album phenomenon. It debuted with 302,000 first-week units, all 12 tracks charted simultaneously in the Hot 100 top 40, and outsold the rest of the UK top 10 combined its opening week. The GUTS World Tour grossed $209.1 million across 101 shows with 1.6 million attendees, the highest-grossing tour ever by any act born in the 21st century. Six Grammy nominations including Album of the Year followed. She's 23, owns her masters, and the internet is already hunting for clues about what comes next.
Side Notes
Before pop stardom, her parents were playing her No Doubt, Pearl Jam, and Green Day, which isn't the obvious DNA for a Gen Z ballad singer but explains why her songs have teeth. She got her first guitar lesson because a Disney character required it. She negotiated master ownership into her Geffen Records deal at 18, which most first-time signings don't think to do. Her father is fourth-generation Filipino American, and she became the first Filipino American on the cover of Vogue USA. The pop star is the least interesting thing about her.