{"id":251419,"date":"2026-01-25T18:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T18:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/251419\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T18:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T18:59:09","slug":"people-can-be-cruel-i-learned-that-early-us-pop-star-madison-beer-on-child-fame-and-fan-attacks-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/251419\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018People can be cruel \u2013 I learned that early\u2019: US pop star Madison Beer on child fame and fan attacks | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Madison Beer may only be 26, but she is something of a veteran in the pop industry. She got her start at 13, after Justin Bieber tweeted a link to a YouTube video of her covering Etta James\u2019s At Last<\/a>, and has spent the intervening decade-plus toiling away in mainstream pop, amassing a huge gen Z fanbase in the process \u2013 including more than 60 million followers between Instagram and TikTok. It\u2019s an understatement to say that her career has been a slow burn: the day before we speak, it\u2019s announced that her single Bittersweet, released in October, has become her first song to reach the US Hot 100 chart, entering at No 98. When I suggest congratulations are in order, she shrugs off the achievement. \u201cI\u2019m obviously super excited and thankful whenever a song performs well, but I think I\u2019m at the point where I love what I make, and I\u2019m proud of it regardless,\u201d she says amiably, before laughing. \u201cOnly took me like, 15 years! But it\u2019s cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beer\u2019s attitude is indicative of someone whose career has progressed in fits and starts, a far cry from the kind of meteoric rise that fans and onlookers sometimes expect to see in aspirant pop stars. As she prepares for the release of her third album, Locket, she is in prime position to break through to pop\u2019s upper echelon: Her 2023 album Silence Between Songs featured the sleeper hits Reckless and Home to Another One, the latter a sorely underrated Tame Impala-inspired cut, and in 2024 she released Make You Mine, a Top 50 single in the UK which was nominated for a best dance pop recording Grammy.<\/p>\n

But those successes, she says, came relatively recently, and she spent many years freeing herself from the idea that things such as charts and awards define an artist. \u201cIt was definitely hard for years to detach from that ideology, but I feel so much better off now that that\u2019s not something I drive myself crazy over,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t want to diss myself here, but I haven\u2019t had No 1s, I haven\u2019t had gigantic songs \u2013 actually, that\u2019s not true, I think I have had gigantic songs, but [not] to people\u2019s criteria. I\u2019m like: if I can still sell out a tour and perform for crowds and enjoy it, then clearly I\u2019m OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bullying a 15-year-old is unacceptable, whereas when I was 15, that wasn\u2019t really a conversation<\/p>\n

Beer was raised in Long Island, New York; after that first burst of publicity via Bieber, her family relocated to Los Angeles, where she was signed as a management client by Scooter Braun, Bieber\u2019s then-longtime manager. The early years of her career followed a time-worn format: she recorded tie-in songs for doll brands; collaborated with more established teen idols such as Cody Simpson; and treaded water until it was time to record an album. Beer started working during a transitional phase for the pop industry, when social media was a powerful force that labels still didn\u2019t really know what to do with. She attracted a lot of hate online, as is common for young female stars, and felt wholly unsupported by the infrastructure around her.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are so quick to be like: \u2018This is what\u2019s wrong with this person,\u2019 and attack someone\u2019s character. The first boyfriend I had [Jack Gilinsky of pop-rap duo Jack & Jack] \u2026 I got so much hate from his fanbase and all of these people online. I learned, very early, that people can be quite cruel,\u201d she says matter-of-factly. \u201cI definitely feel protective [of younger stars] and I fear for people. I would hope that people are now like, \u2018Bullying a 15-year-old is unacceptable\u2019, whereas when I was 15, that wasn\u2019t really a conversation. I didn\u2019t really feel very protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beer here now \u2026 Madison on stage in Fort Worth, Texas. Photograph: Omar Vega\/Getty\/iHeartRadio<\/p>\n

At 16, Beer was dropped by Braun and her then-label Island Records; in a recent Cosmopolitan interview<\/a>, she said she felt that Braun and her label \u201cstole years of my childhood that I\u2019ll never get back\u201d. I ask how it\u2019s felt to witness him part ways with clients such as Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande<\/a>, and receive criticism in the press for his acquisition and sale of Taylor Swift\u2019s masters<\/a>, but Beer sidesteps the topic. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m just at a point in my life where I\u2019m doing my thing, and I\u2019m focusing on my music and my career. I\u2019ve done a lot of therapy, especially regarding those early years, and I\u2019ve really tried to let go of it all,\u201d she says. \u201cHolding animosity, hatred and negativity towards things like that [doesn\u2019t] do me any good. I\u2019ve completely let go of it, and I don\u2019t care. That\u2019s not my issue, not my circus.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 the latter of whom is another star who, like Beer, worked for a decade in pop\u2019s trenches before breaking through in her 20s. Beer says she couldn\u2019t have made a record like Locket, which is direct and freewheeling in its approach, without her more introspective sophomore effort. \u201cWith Silence Between Songs, I really let people get to know me \u2013 that was really what I wanted to get out of that album, whereas with this one, I kind of felt like I didn\u2019t need to go crazy over explaining myself and my story so much,\u201d she says. \u201cI was more so creating music that I loved. It\u2019s a new chapter, it\u2019s a new energy \u2013 I\u2019m older, wiser, in a really good place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dress to impress \u2026 Beer at last year\u2019s Grammys. Photograph: Jeff Kravitz\/FilmMagic<\/p>\n

On Silence Between Songs, Beer didn\u2019t \u201ccare if it [didn\u2019t] do well, because it\u2019s weird \u2013 I\u2019m pulling influence from the Beach Boys, from the Beatles, all these different areas of my life\u201d, she recalls. With this album, she wanted things to be a little more \u201cdigestible to my fanbase\u201d \u2013 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 such as Yes Baby and Make You Mine. \u201cWith this one, it was more so just like, \u2018I want to have fun\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

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, including an incident in which she said she \u201cromanticised\u201d the relationship in Lolita, and another in which 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 made out of a desire for fans and more casual observers to see her as human, rather than just another internet celebrity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been online since I was 12, and some people have their minds made up about me \u2013 they judge me, which is all OK, I\u2019ve made my peace with that,\u201d she says. \u201cBut 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 \u2026 I [had] to give them an opportunity. I wanted to showcase the truth of things I\u2019ve been through, and show my vulnerability, and hopefully inspire other people. I was at a place where I was like: \u2018See me, please, I\u2019m begging you.\u2019 Now that I know the right people have read it and resonated with it, I don\u2019t feel like I need to spend my hours and days sitting online being like: \u2018No no, that thing you think about me is not real.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Photograph: Morgan Maher<\/p>\n

Beer\u2019s newfound peace with how people perceive her comes through on Locket, whose lyrics can be disarmingly honest in its assessment of totalising, dissociative infatuation. \u201cSome days I barely respond to my own name,\u201d she sings at one point; at another, \u201cI only exist in the moments you\u2019re talking to me.\u201d Beer dated TikToker Nick Austin from 2020 until spring 2025, and is currently dating the Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert. She says the album chronicles \u201ca pretty up and down, intense relationship\u201d she was in while writing the record. \u201cI feel very deeply, and I get spirally, I guess I could say, and kind of find\u00a0myself being someone that dwells on things. I\u2019m\u00a0the kind of person that\u2019s like: if I\u2019m in a fight with\u00a0my partner, I feel like I literally don\u2019t have a place in the\u00a0world.\u201d<\/p>\n

She continues: \u201cThere were times where I would shelter how intense I am \u2013 I was like: \u2018I don\u2019t want people to deem me crazy or obsessive\u2019, but that\u2019s how I am. When I love, I love fucking hard, and that is the truth,\u201d she says. \u201cI definitely have abandonment issues, attachment issues, I know I have these things that I try to work through, but it\u2019s just my nature of feeling things super deeply.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beer\u2019s ability to freely admit her flaws, she says, comes from all the work she\u2019s done on herself in the past decade. \u201cI\u2019ve done every kind of therapy \u2013 I\u2019m talking about everything all the time, and I think I\u2019ve come to a point where I can acknowledge these things about me without feeling shame,\u201d she says. \u201cI acknowledge that I am not perfect, and I have my own issues, and I do shit sometimes that I look back on and I\u2019m like: \u2018Why did I do that?\u2019 As long as you can do that and work through it, I think it\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

The downside to writing so openly about a relationship, of course, is that fans will inevitably try to ascribe certain lyrics to certain people, which Beer describes as \u201ca really difficult thing, especially for me\u201d, given how much hate she\u2019s received on social media. \u201cIt\u2019s scary for me to release an album like this. It would\u00a0be pretty easy for me to go online and be like: \u2018This is what happened [in my last relationship]\u2019 and I don\u2019t like that. I think that it\u2019s totally inappropriate in regards to people\u2019s privacy,\u201d she says. \u201cI dated this person for a long time, and I don\u2019t want anybody to go and attack them or rip them apart. I don\u2019t wish ill upon literally anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems as if Beer will be able to stand by Locket as a piece of music, beyond any commercial success, critical praise or fan reaction. She\u2019s grafted to get to this place, and won\u2019t likely let it go any time soon. \u201cThose things are out of my control,\u201d she says. \u201cTo me, the true meaning of success is being able to feel peace and happiness, no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n

Locket is out now. Madison Beer plays the O2<\/a>, London, 30 May<\/a> and Co-op Live<\/a>, Manchester, 31 May<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Madison Beer may only be 26, but she is something of a veteran in the pop industry. She…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-251419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}