When Gracie Abrams and I catch up, it's been a minute.
Since she last sat down for a GLAMOUR interview in 2022, Gracie has written a duet and toured with Taylor Swift, released her sophomore album The Secret of Us and been nominated for a New Artist Grammy.
“I didn't win, which is beautiful,” she says. “It's heaven on earth to lose, especially when you're losing to someone as f**king iconic as Victoria Monét.” The R&B singer-songwriter took home the Grammy, and Gracie remains very excited by the success of female pop stars right now, giving another musician friend of hers, Sabrina Carpenter, as an example.
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“It feels like a really lucky time to be a woman in music because I have so many artists that I get to look up to,” she says. “Everyone topping the charts, it's all chicks and that's really exciting. And Sabrina being number one for a million and a half years feels like it's like only right. Love her so much.”
Female solidarity and collaboration in the music industry is everything to Gracie, not just because she co-wrote her second album The Secret of Us with her best friend Audrey Hobert, but because she also co-wrote a duet for the album, us, with Taylor Swift herself.
A few weeks back, the pair sent Instagram mad with a hilarious video that followed their songwriting session, which peaked with a very hazardous-looking fire in Taylor's kitchen, and ending with the star putting out the fire with a fire extinguisher.
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“I don't know how she's capable of all of the things she's capable of,” Gracie says of Taylor and their wild night. “Operating a fire extinguisher, top of the list. Deeply impressed.” Before the fire and songwriting extravaganza, Taylor had taken Gracie for dinner to celebrate her Grammy nomination. “She was being incredibly kind and sweet… We were totally over served on the drinks front," Gracie recalls.
Her friendship with the Eras star has been formative: “She's so supportive, I feel like every conversation we have, I learn something… It's a masterclass to just know her.”
Gracie describes her new album as “infused” with the love and power she has derived from relationships with the women in her life, including her friends and her mother, Time's Up activist and co-founder Katie McGrath. “I would be in such a sh*tstorm of a mess constantly if I didn't have the friends and the mother that I have,” she says. “I can't understand who I would be without all of them. And that obviously extends far beyond the contents of this album, but is deeply infused in this album.”
The singer, who is gearing up to tour The Secret of Us through the US and Europe, opened up to GLAMOUR about championing sisterhood, owning being the queen of “sad girl pop” and her thoughts on the nepo baby discourse.
Tell us a little bit about what your second album The Secret of Us means to you, especially having written it with your best friend Audrey.
I feel deeply passionate about the writing process behind every single one of the songs that we did together. And they were based in seeds of truth of real experiences of the reality of being 24. Falling in love or being out of a relationship or finding out more about yourself in the context of someone new. All these feelings that are often chaotic and embarrassing… and to do it with somebody who I trust with my life made it feel like breathing. All of my memories associated with the process of making this album really come back to just how important friendship is to me.
What makes you feel empowered?
Reading puts me in a million different places – it's where I feel like my world expands the fastest. Especially doing a job that often entirely revolves around yourself, it can be really exhausting to see your face, hear your voice, look at your name on a piece of paper – I feel that way often. To be in any other universe through reading helps me tolerate the rest of the world a bit more.
We've spoken before about the importance of your mum championing sisterhood – do you feel like you’re doing the same thing with how you’re making music?
I would hope so. I imagine the end of my life, and I don't even see a partner. I want to be surrounded by friends all the time forever, until I'm not here anymore. Those are my people. And I was blessed with a mother who has always set an incredibly beautiful example of what that looks like.
You've spoken about your parents before, and the nurturing household you grew up in in terms of encouraging storytelling. Emma Roberts has spoken out lately about the nepo baby discourse being really sexist and something young women are predominantly called out for – what are your thoughts and feelings on that, based on your experiences?
I think that there are a million visible and invisible points of privilege and access that come with being in a household where even if you're just exposed to a certain vocabulary around anything in the entertainment industry. Because it is such a f**king weird place to work, regardless of whether or not you've been exposed to it.
It makes so much sense that there are a wide variety of feelings around it. I think the likelihood of anything being more pointed at women… look at our world, it's always that way. Women always get it hardest. When you are talking about nepotism, any and all discourse is accepted and understood. Also, you don't pick what you're born into – and my greatest privilege that I can speak to is growing up in a house where I was allowed to imagine that I could continue to write stories as a grown up, and that didn't have to end when I got through school.
You've spoken before about the importance of using your platform to speak out about issues such as the overturning of Roe vs Wade. What causes do you feel like you need to champion right now?
It's a strange time because you don't want to be a distraction from the voices of people that are real professionals. The world is on fire – I think for young people in particular, it's not a hopeful time. A lot of the current climate, the kind of hopelessness I think [makes] a lot of young people feel like throwing in the towel. In my mind, always encouraging people to vote is crucial, despite the dumpster fire that is our current state of things.
What's your relationship with social media like now after the Eras tour and The Secret of Us dropping?
I spend less and less time engaging, because I feel like the internet is where people go to kill people. I think that it's like a joy and light-seeking missile. In order for me to protect my head, I have tried to neutralise the good and the bad. If you put weight on a compliment, then there's equal weight behind someone coming at you, and the only way that I can really justify it all is by reminding myself constantly that when you put your phone down, it just is all of a sudden not real.
I far prefer living in what's tangible and [having] conversations with people who are interested in multiple points of view, that are okay to disagree without wanting to send death threats. The internet isn't where I feel most connected to myself or to the world around me. Obviously, you have upsides for sure in tiny little corners, but generally, I avoid.
How do you take care of your mental health and wellbeing?
I know that people talk about grounding and stepping on grass – for me it's getting my head underwater in the ocean anytime I can. Or going on a hike, actually immersing myself in nature, not even just being outside but being away from noise. I feel like nature and love are the two things that combat the darkness that we are all feeling right now. That's the way that I best know to take care of myself on the deepest level – my nervous system shifts when I'm in nature.
Heartbreak is definitely a huge subject of your songs – as you move through your 20s, what have you learnt about heartbreak?
I find I've always learned so much through disappointing romantic situations… To be heartbroken is totally necessary sometimes, to better understand yourself in the context of relationships, whether that's about how you handle it, or about what your boundaries, how you imagine the next relationship. So I am really grateful for every single instance that I've been let down by a relationship.
You’re the queen of "sad girl pop" – is it empowering being at the helm of a music genre where women are being big and open about their emotions?
So I know firsthand that so many of the women in that category of music have created spaces that have allowed younger women to feel like they can grow up expressing themselves so openly about feelings that are heavier. So yeah, I will wear that proudly.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
The Secret of Us is out now.
