Audrey Hobert has arrived

Someone at Audrey Hobert’s first London show has made themselves a T‑shirt with her teenage face on it. There’s a lot of screaming, too. And when she leans into the crowd to take a selfie on a fan’s phone, there’s Harry Styles levels of hysteria. For an artist who’s only released a couple of singles, it’s really quite something.

​“First, it spooked me,” the 26-year-old says of her already diehard fanbase when we meet the following morning, on the 10^th floor bar of The Standard in London. ​“And then I leaned into it. There’s nothing bad about it.” So how did she feel about the T‑shirt? ​“I didn’t have the capacity to make it a beautiful moment where I’m looking at a past version of myself… It was more just like, whoa.”

Since the release of her debut single Sue Me in May this year, Audrey Hobert’s career has been a whirlwind. The song – a catchy and sardonic parable for post-breakup horniness (“I know it’s platonic /​But fucking your ex is iconic”) – hit two million Spotify streams in a week, and at the time of writing, that number has climbed to 21 million. This is Hobert’s first time ever travelling outside the US and she’s just announced her debut album, Who’s The Clown?, which is dropping 15^th August via RCA. Tonight, she’ll play another sold-out London show. Tomorrow she hits Berlin for label meetings and promo, and the day after that, Amsterdam. ​“I’ve been workin’ this room service,” she mutters under her breath when our coffees arrive.

Hobert was always determined to make it. She grew up in Los Angeles and her dad is a screenwriter. Her college years were spent in New York, where she enrolled in NYU’s screenwriting programme. ​“Some people wouldn’t say what their top school was, so that if they didn’t get in they wouldn’t look dumb. I just would go around and tell everyone. Hey, some people call that manifesting!” After college, she returned to LA, where she wound up writing for Nickelodeon sitcom The Really Loud House. At her fifth-grade graduation, she met Gracie Abrams, who’d go on to become one of her best friends and a songwriting partner. Hobert co-wrote (and directed music videos for) several songs on Abrams’ album The Secret of Us. Her work with Abrams landed her a publishing deal with Universal Music Group.

For some time, Hobert has had a presence on TikTok, where her unfiltered content gave Abrams’ fans a peek behind the curtain. Hobert teased Sue Me by flooding her TikTok page with characteristically off-kilter videos, and now her music gets lapped up as background audio for dances, relatable scenarios and nostalgic edits. ​“How I feel listening to this song” reads the text plastered over a sugary edit of girly romcoms set to Sue Me.

Now, it feels like Audrey Hobert has evolved from Abrams’ beloved sidekick to a breakout star. But it’s still hard to find a TikTok clip using Hobert’s music without users accusing her of being an industry plant in the comments. Her friendship with Abrams has even meant she’s been targeted with a new online buzzword: the ​“nepo friend”. On stage in London, Hobert briefly addresses the accusation. ​“I’ve been adjacent to the rich and famous and that’s all I’m gonna say about that,” she told the audience. ​“I think I would be this creative person having grown up anywhere,” she says, when I bring it up during our interview. ​“You don’t choose where you’re born.”

It was music, rather than film and TV, where Hobert eventually found her calling. ​“Pop is the thing that gets my heart thumpin’,” she says. ​“Songwriting gave me a sense of purpose and self-worth that required validation from nobody besides me. It was like, why wouldn’t I keep doing this all the time?” Still, she’s applied her storytelling skills to chaotically humorous lyrics, which read like the script notes on an episode of Girls (“He’s off his meds and he’s an artist,” she sings on her tragically hilarious ballad Sex & The City).

On her Substack, you’ll find an entry where Hobert asks her friends whether they’d rather have Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s life or die in the Hunger Games. A newsletter from May chronicles a trip to a strip club, where she developed a crush on one of the dancers. ​“Lanky, we called him,” Hobert wrote. ​“But as soon as we stepped out of the club I wanted to cry thinking about being swept away by Lanky. No thank you. I’d rather be alone.”

Hobert’s second single Bowling Alley – declared ​“song of the summer” by Ethel Cain on Insta stories – tells a story of social anxiety and insecurity after accepting an invite to a social gathering. ​“But I got my creams on and my gown on /​And I don’t think anyone cares if I go or not,” she sings over breezy acoustic guitars. But in person, Hobert seems unwavering in her confidence. ​“When I sit down to write a song, I don’t ever really feel like I’m pouring my heart out. I feel like I’m crafting a tale,” she explains.

On stage, Hobert is fearless. Her show is part performance art, part self-deprecating stand-up routine. In London, there are lengthy pre-ambles before each song, revealing her anxieties about having conditions such as dyscalculia (“I haven’t been formally diagnosed, but I think that’s ​’cause my parents stopped them from uttering the words”) and trichotillomania (“I pulled out a bunch of my hair, but it’s grown back — thank God”). Her gloriously uninhibited stage presence is clearly striking a chord, with clips of her belting out Sue Me getting hundreds of thousands of likes on TikTok.

“I don’t feel like I’m being brave by being candid,” she says, back at The Standard. It’s never been hard for me.” That doesn’t mean Audrey Hobert isn’t aiming for the stars, though. She’s up for fame, as long as it doesn’t reach the stage where she gets mobbed outside. “ I’m someone who will go to CVS and look like shit,” she says. ​“I’m hoping I don’t start to need to beat my face to go to the drugstore.

“[But] I definitely have things that I want. I love awards,” she continues. ​“I want to give a speech one day.” I tell her that a lot of artists probably wouldn’t admit that. ​“Oh, that’s the biggest load of fucking bullshit I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” she says, rolling her eyes. ​“Quote me on that.”