Audrey Hobert on Clocking Bitches, Bad Dates, and Writing Bangers

I want to be at a gross bar with Audrey Hobert, sharing a frosty beer, getting deep about relationship icks and where she shops. We could pretend we are in a scene right out of her music videos about bad dates and bowling alleys and demented Dorothy frocks. It’d be the perfect backdrop for a conversation with Gen Z’s favorite new pop girl, the strawberry blonde, Gumby-limbed singer who personifies the existential haunting by way of unrequited love (or unanswered text messages) that occurs in our mid- to late-20s.Instead, Audrey and I are squeezing in time between her concert rehearsals over Zoom. She’s in a massive red vintage sweatshirt, telling me about Jazzercise class (“it’s fucking awesome, my perfect workout”) and writing breakup songs (“I’ve been dumped and I’ve dumped; they both suck, but I prefer to be the person dumping”), exuding the exact unabashed realness her millions of followers and listeners lap up. She’s the zodiac of both hot-girl Sun and crippling anxiety Moon, the perfect sad-clown dichotomy for owning this moment in pop culture.Audrey’s debut album—aptly named Who’s the Clown?—has been a joyful earworm since its release in August 2025. And Audrey herself has been everywhere this year: Her track “Sue Me” set the mood for the best scenes in Prime Video’s horny hit Off Campus;1 her surrealist music video “Thirst Trap” has been endlessly chopped and sliced into Instagram Reels and TikToks; her Lollapalooza set (performed in a trench coat on a trampoline in front of tens of thousands of fans) became instantly recognizable; her NPR Tiny Desk appearance dominated social algorithms; her current Staircase to Stardom Tour has had multiple nearly sold-out dates, including three in Brooklyn this week; and she just announced she’ll soon be joining Charli xcx on tour.21. The show’s massive fandom happily latched on to “Sue Me,” using it as the backdrop to countless viral fan edits. The song now has more than 151 million streams on Spotify.2. Audrey calls Charli’s new record, Music, Fashion, Film, “my album of the year; I listen to it all the time.”Dress, tights, and shoes Loewe, earrings (worn throughout) Audrey’s own. It all makes sense, given how searingly universal Audrey’s lyrics are. She’s a master storyteller who sings about gutting, coming-of-age nightmares in an eerily upbeat way. She understands that there are some women who are natural-born seductresses, and then there are the rest of us: buck-toothed with inverted chests, girls who can’t hold the gaze of a crush because they never looked at us to begin with.3 Her songwriting unleashes a crypt of fears meant to be buried, yet she ecstatically exhumes them, complete with arms-flailing choreography.3. A few sample lyrics: “Nobody sees me at all is the problem” and “And if he’s hot and seems into it, it’s accidental / What’s it like to be admired / Hot and desired?” and “I think I’ve got a fucked-up face / And that thought used to haunt me.”Audrey got her music start by cowriting her childhood friend Gracie Abrams’s album, The Secret of Us, and was a recurring character in some of Gracie’s earliest songs and videos. Since her own rise to stardom, Audrey has caught her fair share of nepo-laden strays. And it is true that Audrey grew up in celebrity-bloated Los Angeles with a father who worked in television (her younger brother is singer-songwriter Malcolm Todd). Manicured pop stardom might have been the obvious path, but Audrey has created her own corner of the industry. She is visually stripped down, poetically dives into the cringe, and uses lyrical storytelling to churn out deceivingly sweet-sounding, chart-topping hits.She has none of the hyper-filtered pop gloss coating many of her peers, and she seems willing to embrace weirdness and ignore public criticism to feed her fans with songs they can intimately relate to. They experience Audrey as Audrey. “I don’t feel that I have to be anything that I’m not for anyone,” she says. Writes one commenter on her “Sex and the City” video about a hopeful date turned grim disaster: “This song is so important…being mistreated but accepting it for touch and connection. The realization of ‘This is not it.’ You have captured something most of us feel but none of us say. Thank you.”Top Cleo Camp for Cosmopolitan, top (underneath) Cleo Camp, brooch Emily Dawn Long, ring (worn throughout) Audrey’s own. You’re 27, an age where you kind of feel like an adult but also kind of not. How do you feel right now? Pretty good. I’m home for the first time in a month and a half. I’ve been on the road all year.4 It’s been a whirlwind—a really great thing—but that road life is not particularly for me.4. Audrey has spent a lot of 2026 on her international Staircase to Stardom Tour, which will continue through much of the fall.Because you have to turn it on all the time?I don’t know if I’ve ever turned it on in my life. If I’m on, it’s because I am literally on and I’m excited. I wish I could more concretely describe it, but when I am in front of suits or fans or family or whoever, I don’t ever feel like I have to put on the sparkle.Got it—your secret weapon is not turning it on. And I feel like you can read people. When I listen to your music, I feel a yearning that I had in my 20s, this tragic yet beautiful yearning that influenced a lot of what I did during that time. My life is really changing a lot, but I’ve pumped the brakes on some big changes that would dissolve a yearning feeling. I’ve stayed in my apartment when I could have moved to a nicer place, just because I still feel like wanting a bigger place, wanting a house. I still want to want that.I had a cosmic experience the other day back home at my parents’ house in Do Nothing, Massachusetts, where the only thing you can do is basically smoke pot in the drugstore parking lot. I was running around my high school track listening to your song “Drive,” and it brought me back to a few specific moments in high school, trying to fit in but always being somewhat...like, no one ever coughed in my direction. I really needed you when I was younger.Who did you listen to then?I was very much into indie sleaze. The whole school was listening to Gwen Stefani and I’m like, “I don’t align with that. I want to smoke a cigarette.” I wished I was like you. I went to a very artsy middle school where everyone was listening to beach goth, and I recognized how cool that was. But I remember in eighth grade, writing a very long Tumblr post where I confessed that I actually didn’t like beach goth and my favorite song was “Party in the U.S.A.” I have always loved pop music. I’d say my taste in music is hit songs, but also this year, I’ve found solace in more abstract-leaning indie stuff as I’ve been traveling all the time and just never knowing where I am. Not to sound dramatic, but it’s funny because I don’t make that kind of music, and I cannot see myself making that kind of music.All clothing Isabel Marant, socks Wolford, shoes McQueen.But your emphasis is still very much on lyrics. There’s this part in your song “Sex and the City”: “God, is he boring? I wanna wake up in makeup with him in the morning. He calls a car to his apartment. I guess there is a God.” This tiny pathetic thing a guy does is confirmation God exists. It blew my mind. I was like, This girl, she is a writer through and through.Oh my god, that’s my dream. I wish more people would read my lyrics out loud and then dissect them. That’s the whole reason I got into this business, because I wrote these lyrics and felt so strongly about them. The longer I do this job, the more I am sure that I am a writer, more than a performer, more than anything else.What does writing feel like for you? It’s like an exorcism. It makes me feel smart. It makes me feel interesting. Before I wrote Who’s the Clown?, for years it would be a Sunday and everyone and their mother would be relaxing on the couch and I would be trying to relax, but I felt this vibration of I have to do something with my talent and I don’t feel like I have yet. Once I wrote this album, I relaxed for the first time.You cowrote songs on your friend Gracie Abrams’s album, The Secret of Us.5 What have you learned from her as a friend, as a cowriter, as a collaborator?So much. She is very truly humble and very methodical and smart. Her priorities with this job have always been clear and have never wavered: She is doing this to express herself and to connect people. I just really couldn’t think of anyone else I’d rather watch go through the highs and lows of this and then take what I’ve learned from her and go forth.5. Audrey also cowrote the song “Minibar” on Gracie’s latest album. The Cosmopolitan staff dubbed the track “low-key hopecore.”You’re from L.A. Did you ever feel like an outsider growing up in celebrity-sprinkled spaces?I had a lot of different kinds of friends, but what made me feel like an outsider was how much I watched people and felt interested in observing people. I was always clocking bitches left and right, not even in a bad way. I think that inherently puts you on the outskirts.How has being one of four kids and an older sister shaped you?I have been a leader my whole life, and I’ve always felt very comfortable making decisions and telling people what to do. At the same time, I always had to share. I attribute that to my parents and how good they were at dishing out equal attention to all of us and never making one of us feel more talented, smarter, whatever it may be.Your brother, Malcolm Todd, is also a musician. What’s that like? Really brilliant because Malcolm’s work ethic is not something that I relate to. He can’t live without making music, where I feel like I could. Sometimes when he was making his album, he would stay at a hotel and not bring his phone. I tried doing that this year.I did read that you try not to scroll. I feel like I do a pretty good job. I was entirely off social media for months. I just feel like it’s a waste of time, ultimately. Then around Lollapalooza, it just got so crazy that I had to tap back in and see what the hell was going on. I don’t keep Instagram on my phone. If I’m going in, I am on Instagram.com on my laptop.Wait, so how do you upload stuff?I will download the app and post and then delete it immediately.Being online, you see things you don’t want to see, and you don’t want to poison your brain with that. But you also have to be in the world, so it’s this dance....I’ve always had a complicated relationship with Instagram. I remember the day it came out, I was in middle school, everyone was at their lockers, downloading it. I remember being on it for a month and knowing, This doesn’t sit right with me. I don’t like the way that this app makes me feel. That’s been one of the hardest things about being a singer because it’s so integral to your success. I’m not naive—I don’t think I’m so good that I could not have an Instagram. If I’m popping out as a new artist, I have to be showing myself online.There are obviously people who critique and people who are going to say some gnarly stuff. I will say no one’s ever said anything that’s made me upset. I think that’s probably due to the fact that I just don’t fundamentally agree with an opinion of me if it’s bad. I’m like, “I don’t agree, and it doesn’t hurt me.” I’m lucky.How did you learn that kind of confidence?My mom. When I would come to her in elementary school crying about how a boy didn’t like me back, she would grab me by the shoulders and be like, “His loss, his loss, his loss, his loss, his loss.” So since infancy, I’ve been like, “His loss.” And it’s not all about boys. My mom is a very confident woman and my dad has no ego, so it’s a good combo. All of my siblings and I are very confident people.Speaking of boys, what’s dating like when you’re on the road? Do you even have time for it?Well, I have a boyfriend, so I don’t have to think about it. I just started talking about this. We met through work, in Hollywood. He’s really smart and funny.All clothing, shoes, and belt Marni, socks stylist’s own, ring Pandora. What does love look like for you two?We love to go to the movies, go out to eat. It’s really just normal stuff. We kick it on the couch. I don’t think we’ve ever done something extravagant. He doesn’t like grand gestures or surprises. And I’m not someone who naturally is inclined toward that, so it kind of really works.What’s the worst date you’ve been on?I've been on dates with exes where I’m at the dinner table across from them with the complete knowledge that it’s not going to work out, but the entrée hasn’t arrived yet.Okay, that’s a lyric. When do you know a relationship is over? What is that moment for you?Something happens that shows me that we are so fundamentally different that it won’t work. Some couples can be opposites attracting, but I would love to marry the male version of myself. I think that’s who I’m with.That’s great, because it’s hard to find. Have any of your exes ever reached out like, “Was this song about me?”No one’s ever asked. But songs that were about my ex, I tried to play them for him before they came out. I think it’s the right thing to do. He didn’t want to hear them.Dress Briah Artemis, tights Calzedonia, shoes Ferragamo. That was nice of you though. I want to talk a bit about image now. In the pop world, we’re used to seeing people so manicured all the time and just very styled up. Every single time I see a celebrity on the street, it’s like they’re giving a look. But you’ve really kept it pared back in jeans and a t-shirt.The first thing I wanted to wear onstage was jeans and a t-shirt, so I did that. And then I knew I would start moving more, so I switched to just all-black tights, basically dancewear. I’ve switched up my look a little bit since I started touring, but I’ve never had a stylist. I do love fashion though.What’s a fashion item you’ve splurged on?I bought my first designer bag at Balenciaga, the amazing brown suede clip. It can fit a laptop in it, but it doesn’t look huge. I wore it for a while and then was like, “It feels crazy to be holding something so expensive all the time.” So I switched back to a tote, but then it’s just everything is at the bottom of the bag and I’m always having to rummage forever to find what I’m looking for.Have you bought anything else recently?I got some clogs I’m really excited about, like French recycled hemp garden clogs. I was like, “I need some good slip-on shoes to go to the laundry room with.”Have you been writing any new music since you’ve been on tour? I am always trying to write some songs. I have a Notes app folder that is all just thoughts I have that make me think of music. But I don’t feel like I’ve started the next cycle, if that makes sense.Do you have to be in pure silence when you’re writing?Yeah, I do. And I would prefer to be living as normally as I possibly can. I need space and time to daydream 24/7. It’s like if I’m sitting at my desk with a pen and paper and a guitar for four hours, for the rest of the day, I’m still thinking about the song, but I’m doing my laundry or I’m driving to do a workout class or I’m cooking. I want complete normalcy.Does that exist for you anymore?It’s been nice because people are interested in talking to me at parties in a way that has never really been the case. I’ve always had to push to be noticed, specifically at industry events. But now I don’t have to push anymore, and I’ll walk in and it’s, like, eight heads turn and they all want a piece of me…and I would like to go back to no one caring a little bit. That would ignite me to write.Lead image: T-shirt Briah Artemis, skirt Miss Claire Sullivan, skirt (bottom) Kiko Kostadinov, boots Jimmy Choo, bracelet Pandora. Styled by Sachiko Earlene Clyde. Hair by Davide Perfetti for K18 Hair. Makeup by Shayna Goldberg at The Wall Group. Manicure by Honey for Chanel. Set design by Daniel Horowitz.