Madison Beer is only 26, but she’s already a veteran of the pop industry. She began her career at 13 when Justin Bieber tweeted a link to her YouTube cover of Etta James’s “At Last.” Since then, she has spent over a decade working in mainstream pop, building a massive Gen Z following along the way—with more than 60 million followers on Instagram and TikTok combined. To say her career has been a slow burn is an understatement: the day before our interview, it was announced that her October single “Bittersweet” had become her first song to reach the US Hot 100 chart, debuting at No. 98. When I offer congratulations, she downplays the achievement. “I’m obviously super excited and thankful whenever a song performs well, but I think I’m at the point where I love what I make, and I’m proud of it regardless,” she says warmly, then laughs. “Only took me like, 15 years! But it’s cool.”
Beer’s attitude reflects a career that has progressed in fits and starts, far from the meteoric rise often expected of aspiring pop stars. As she prepares to release her third album, Locket, she is well-positioned to break into pop’s upper echelon. Her 2023 album Silence Between Songs included sleeper hits like “Reckless” and “Home to Another One,” the latter a sorely underrated track inspired by Tame Impala. In 2024, she released “Make You Mine,” a Top 50 single in the UK that was nominated for a Grammy for Best Dance Pop Recording.
However, she notes that these successes came relatively recently, and she spent years freeing herself from the idea that charts and awards define an artist. “It was definitely hard for years to detach from that mindset, but I feel so much better now that I’m not driving myself crazy over it,” she says. “I don’t want to put myself down, but I haven’t had No. 1 hits or gigantic songs—actually, that’s not true, I think I have had gigantic songs, just not by other people’s standards. I figure: if I can still sell out a tour and perform for crowds and enjoy it, then clearly I’m doing okay.”
Beer grew up in Long Island, New York. After her initial burst of fame from Bieber’s tweet, her family moved to Los Angeles, where she was signed as a management client by Scooter Braun, Bieber’s longtime manager at the time. The early years of her career followed a familiar pattern: she recorded songs for doll brands, collaborated with established teen idols like Cody Simpson, and waited until it was time to record an album. Beer started during a transitional phase for the pop industry, when social media was a powerful force that labels were still figuring out. Like many young female stars, she faced significant online hate and felt unsupported by the industry around her.
“People are so quick to point out what’s wrong with someone and attack their character. My first boyfriend [Jack Gilinsky of the pop-rap duo Jack & Jack]… I got so much hate from his fanbase and people online. I learned very early that people can be quite cruel,” she says matter-of-factly. “I definitely feel protective of younger stars, and I worry for them. I hope people now recognize that bullying a 15-year-old is unacceptable, whereas when I was 15, that wasn’t really discussed. I didn’t feel very protected.”
At 16, Beer was dropped by Braun and her then-label, Island Records. In a recent Cosmopolitan interview, she said she felt Braun and her label “stole years of my childhood.””…that I’ll never get back.” I ask how it felt to watch him part ways with clients like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, and receive criticism in the press for acquiring and selling Taylor Swift’s masters, but Beer sidesteps the topic. “I feel like I’m just at a point in my life where I’m doing my thing, and I’m focusing on my music and my career. I’ve done a lot of therapy, especially about those early years, and I’ve really tried to let go of it all,” she says. “Holding animosity, hatred, and negativity towards things like that doesn’t do me any good. I’ve completely let go of it, and I don’t care. That’s not my issue, not my circus.”
That perspective, and sensitivity to her own emotions, comes to the fore on Locket. The album pairs raw, provocative lyrics with lush, dreamy pop music that sits somewhere between Lana Del Rey and Sabrina Carpenter—the latter being another star who, like Beer, worked for a decade in pop’s trenches before breaking through in her twenties. Beer says she couldn’t have made a record like Locket, which is direct and freewheeling in its approach, without her more introspective sophomore effort. “With Silence Between Songs, I really let people get to know me—that was really what I wanted from that album, whereas with this one, I kind of felt like I didn’t need to go crazy over explaining myself and my story so much,” she says. “I was more so creating music that I loved. It’s a new chapter, it’s a new energy—I’m older, wiser, in a really good place.”
On Silence Between Songs, Beer didn’t “care if it didn’t do well, because it’s weird—I’m pulling influence from the Beach Boys, from the Beatles, all these different areas of my life,” she recalls. With this album, she wanted things to be a little more “digestible to my fanbase”—and, as such, the sound fits a more traditional mould; it is, for the most part, a plush R&B record studded with throbbing dance-pop tracks like Yes Baby and Make You Mine. “With this one, it was more so just like, ‘I want to have fun.'”
Silence Between Songs was released in 2023, after a few difficult years for Beer, during which she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and attracted widespread criticism online for a variety of fairly trivial snafus. These included an incident where she said she “romanticised” the relationship in Lolita, and another where she was accused of staging photos of herself at a Black Lives Matter protest (which both she and the photographer deny). In 2023 she also released a memoir titled The Half of It, in which she opened up about her struggles with mental health, the sexualisation she experienced as a teenager, and much more. Both projects were born from a desire for fans and more casual observers to see her as human, rather than just another internet celebrity.
“I’ve been online since I was 12, and some people have their minds made up about me—they judge me, which is all okay, I’ve made my peace with that,” she says. “But at the end of the day, I felt with writing a book, at least the people who do want to take the time to get to know me… I had to give them an opportunity. I wanted to showcase the truth of things I’ve been through, and show my vulnerability, and hopefully inspire other people. I was at a place where I was like: ‘See me, please, I’m begging you.’ Now that I know the right people have read it and resonated with it, I don’t feel like I need to spend my hours and days sitting online being like: ‘No no, that thing you think about me is not real.'”
Beer’s newfound peace with how people perceive her comes…On “Locket,” the lyrics offer a disarmingly honest look at all-consuming, dissociative infatuation. “Some days I barely respond to my own name,” she sings at one point, and later, “I only exist in the moments you’re talking to me.” Beer dated TikToker Nick Austin from 2020 until spring 2023 and is currently dating Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert. She says the album documents “a pretty up and down, intense relationship” she was in while writing it.
“I feel very deeply, and I get spirally, I guess I could say, and kind of find myself being someone that dwells on things,” she explains. “I’m the kind of person that’s like: if I’m in a fight with my partner, I feel like I literally don’t have a place in the world.”
She continues: “There were times where I would hide how intense I am—I was like, ‘I don’t want people to deem me crazy or obsessive,’ but that’s how I am. When I love, I love fucking hard, and that is the truth. I definitely have abandonment issues, attachment issues, I know I have these things that I try to work through, but it’s just my nature of feeling things super deeply.”
Beer says her ability to openly admit her flaws comes from all the self-work she’s done over the past decade. “I’ve done every kind of therapy—I’m talking about everything all the time, and I think I’ve come to a point where I can acknowledge these things about me without feeling shame,” she says. “I acknowledge that I am not perfect, and I have my own issues, and I do shit sometimes that I look back on and I’m like, ‘Why did I do that?’ As long as you can do that and work through it, I think it’s OK.”
The downside to writing so openly about a relationship, of course, is that fans will inevitably try to connect certain lyrics to specific people—something Beer describes as “a really difficult thing, especially for me,” given the amount of hate she receives on social media. “It’s scary for me to release an album like this. It would be pretty easy for me to go online and be like, ‘This is what happened [in my last relationship],’ and I don’t like that. I think that it’s totally inappropriate in regards to people’s privacy,” she says. “I dated this person for a long time, and I don’t want anybody to go and attack them or rip them apart. I don’t wish ill upon literally anybody.”
It seems Beer will be able to stand by “Locket” as a piece of music, regardless of commercial success, critical praise, or fan reaction. She’s worked hard to reach this point and isn’t likely to let it go anytime soon. “Those things are out of my control,” she says. “To me, the true meaning of success is being able to feel peace and happiness, no matter what.”
Locket is out now. Madison Beer plays the O2 in London on 30 May and Co-op Live in Manchester on 31 May.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs based on Madison Beers reflection on childhood fame and public criticism
General Understanding
Q What does Madison Beer mean by People can be cruelI learned that early
A Shes talking about experiencing harsh personal criticism and negativity from the public and online commenters from a very young age especially after gaining fame as a teenager
Q What are the main challenges of childhood fame shes referring to
A The main challenges include growing up under constant public scrutiny dealing with cyberbullying and mean comments having your normal teenage mistakes amplified online and struggling to develop a personal identity outside of public perception
Specifics Examples
Q How did Madison Beer become famous so young
A She was discovered and promoted by Justin Bieber on social media when she was around 13 years old which launched her into the public eye very quickly
Q Can you give an example of the cruel criticism she faced
A Yes She has spoken about being relentlessly criticized for her appearance her voice and her personal life This included bodyshaming hate comments on social media and having her every move judged by strangers
Q Is this just about online hate or something more
A Its more than just online comments For child stars this cruelty can affect mental health lead to anxiety and depression create trust issues and make it difficult to have normal friendships and relationships
Impact Mental Health
Q What impact does this kind of early cruelty have on a person
A It can lead to longterm mental health issues like anxiety depression and PTSD It can also shape a persons selfworth making them feel they are never good enough and must constantly seek validation
Q Has Madison Beer spoken about her mental health because of this
A Yes She has been very open about her struggles with anxiety depression and suicidal ideation linking them directly to the pressures of fame and the cruelty she experienced online
Q Why dont celebrities just ignore the hate comments
A Its extremely difficult to ignore when criticism is constant pervasive and often feels personal When youre young your brain is still developing and this negativity can become internalized affecting your core sense of self
Broader Context Advice
