{"id":571031,"date":"2026-05-07T12:37:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T12:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/571031\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T12:37:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T12:37:15","slug":"rose-gray-on-fame-partying-and-meeting-madonna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/571031\/","title":{"rendered":"Rose Gray on fame, partying \u2014 and meeting Madonna"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rose Gray has been starstruck a few times. There was the time she was at a Gucci show with Rihanna and ASAP Rocky (\u201cI didn\u2019t speak to them\u201d). There was the time she sat next to Lady Gaga (\u201cI didn\u2019t speak to her \u2014 and I should have\u201d). And then there was the time she met Madonna, at a party thrown to celebrate the singer\u2019s 2023 arena tour.<\/p>\n

Gray did speak to the queen of pop. \u201cI got introduced to her and sort of curtsied,\u201d she says. \u201cI was really nervous \u2014 she has a powerful presence. It\u2019s very warm, though.\u201d Gray was in character. \u201cWe were told to come dressed as a Madonna era, so I dressed like when she lived in London and was with Guy Ritchie, and kept being papped in all Adidas with Kangol hats.\u201d What did the guest of honour make of the cosplay? \u201cI think Madonna got it,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s all that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MusicianTop and coat, prices on application, Balenciaga. Hyper-Cherries headpiece, \u00a3520, Piers AtkinsonBella Howard for the sunday times<\/p>\n

\"MusicianJacket, \u00a33,990, skirt, \u00a31,330, slingbacks and earrings, POA, Saint Laurent by Anthony VaccarelloBella Howard for the sunday times<\/p>\n

Curled up in a booth in a pub in Kentish Town, northwest London, over a cup of tea, today Gray is off-duty and still looks ready to party in a bright orange jacket, jeans and Tabis, her dark red hair falling around her face. Party-ready is her brand: Gray\u2019s 2025 album, Louder, Please is a taut 41 minutes of clever club-classic anthems and melancholic earworms with a beat that got her nominated for a Brits Critics\u2019 Choice award this year. It was the IYKYK soundtrack to summer 2025 \u2014 though Gray, 29, spent much of it on tour with Kesha \u2014 hurtling across America on a tour bus (\u201ca lot of partying, high energy, amazing\u201d) \u2014 and the Sugababes. \u201cSiobh\u00e1n, we really connected,\u201d she says. \u201cI think it was the red hair.\u201d<\/p>\n

This summer she\u2019s playing \u201c16 or 17 festivals\u201d. She is also about to set off around Europe and North America on her first headline tour. Things have really stepped up a gear. \u201cMuch faster, much less sleep. It\u2019s great. I spent years not feeling like I was doing what I was meant to be doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Louder, Please is her first album but Gray is no new kid on the block. When she was 17, three weeks into her first term at the Brit School \u2014 the pop star mill that has produced Raye, Olivia Dean and Lola Young \u2014 she auditioned for a record label and ultimately signed a deal. She spent three years writing music, only to release nothing \u2014 \u201cI got to 20 and was like, what the hell is going on?\u201d \u2014 so she called in the lawyers and got out of the deal. \u201cI pushed music away for about two or three years. I didn\u2019t like the way I was treated, and I just think I was so young that I needed space from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This led to a few years doing odd jobs: as a teaching assistant, video role play for the NHS, and working the guest list and cloakroom at Fabric. \u201cReally good memories there \u2014 finishing and being able to party,\u201d she says, often with her best mates, a gang she met in the canteen on her first day at the Brit School. \u201cI started to really need to go out,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was really affecting me, not having a clear plan, so going out was my everything. I would plan weeks around where to go.\u201d Best place she\u2019s ever partied? \u201cBerghain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RoseLeather and shearling jacket, POA, and chandelier earrings, \u00a3790, Rabanne. Vintage tiara, from a selection, Gillian HorsupBella Howard for the sunday times<\/p>\n

They might have felt like lost years at the time, but really it was all good material. Gray never stopped writing, and after she found new management she got back in the studio and made the album. \u201cI never stopped making music,\u201d she says, \u201cwhich I think is a bit like, \u2018Maybe you just have to do this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Now she\u2019s doing it all: touring, songwriting in Stockholm (\u201cthe pop music mecca\u201d), still hitting dancefloors in east London \u2014 and turning out on the odd red carpet with her husband-to-be, the Babygirl actor Harris Dickinson, 29. They have been dating since school and got engaged last spring. The wedding is \u2014 politely \u2014 off limits, although in April they had what, from Instagram, appeared to be a joint \u201csten do\u201d at a big old mansion. Gray wore a white bodysuit by Di Petsa (complete with a white garter), Dickinson some smart tailoring, and their guests \u2014 who included the musician Gracie Abrams \u2014 dressed as fairies for a weekend of DIY DJ sets and dancing. One Instagram slide shows a poster for something called Club Misty, which was surely in honour of Misty Blue, the couple\u2019s British shorthair cat with a blue steel stare. Did she have a sten do? \u201cPeople don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a big party that I had,\u201d she says, faux coy. Well, what was it? \u201cIt was a celebration of love. There were a lot of couples there \u2014 it could have been for one of the 20 couples there, to be fair.\u201d Uh huh. \u201cIt was very fun,\u201d she giggles. \u201cVery, very fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CollageRose Gray with her fianc\u00e9, Harris Dickinson; and performing in Michigan in July 2025, supporting Kesha Scott Legato, Swan Gallet\/WWD via Getty Images<\/p>\n

When she and Dickinson \u2014 currently filming his role as John Lennon in the Sam Mendes Beatles films, alongside Paul Mescal, who plays Paul McCartney \u2014 are not celebrating, they are wandering up the canal in east London to the pub. \u201cWe just love to chill, not being together that much,\u201d she says. They cope fine with the itinerant lifestyles of pop star and actor. \u201cHonestly, it\u2019s all I know. And I think it really works \u2014 we\u2019ve both got our own little worlds going on and sometimes they entwine, but mostly we\u2019re doing our own thing and it really works not always being in the same place at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dickinson has directed two of her videos: 2019\u2019s Blue and 2023\u2019s Afraid of Nothing (which at one point features a runaway bride hurtling through the streets of London). What was it like to collaborate? \u201cI love it \u2014 and I also think we will again as well. Now we\u2019ve both grown as artists and creatives, I think it will happen. We really do learn a lot from each other\u2019s industries \u2014 film and music are very different.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Their relationship has evolved as their careers have. \u201cI feel like we\u2019ve done really well,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m so proud of how we\u2019ve grown and I\u2019m so proud of him. We\u2019re just having a really good time. It feels like a really good year for both of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born Rosie May Hudson-Edmonds, she grew up \u201con the border of Highams Park and Walthamstow\u201d. (Dickinson is from Highams Park.) Her parents were jobbing actors who juggled other jobs \u2014 her dad as a builder, her mum office jobs \u2014 and she was \u201ca proper tomboy. Very, very curly hair, climbed trees, always broke my bones.\u201d She played striker for the local football team Interwood and got scouted by Tottenham. \u201cIt freaked me out so much that I never went to the trial \u2014 I didn\u2019t think I was good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MusicianJacket, \u00a32,250 and skirt, \u00a31,100, FendiBella Howard for the sunday times<\/p>\n

\"MusicianVest, \u00a3250, and coat, POA, Stella McCartney. Night Sky diamond earrings, \u00a319,995, 886 by the Royal MintBella Howard for the sunday times<\/p>\n

Her first exposure to pop was the Now\u2026 CDs (join the club), which evolved into a full-blown teenage obsession with Robyn. (Gray saw her Sexistential show<\/a> at the Hackney Empire in March: \u201cIt blew my mind.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Sixteen months after her first big album, Gray is getting to grips with the pop star lifestyle. Red carpets are fine now she has glam \u2014 \u201cwhen I was younger I was getting changed in a pub toilet\u201d \u2014 and touring is an adventure. \u201cI love it. Waking up in a new city every other day \u2014 when would you do that unless you\u2019re on your gap year?\u201d (Her rider includes Haribo, good coffee, ginger shots and orange wine, which she swapped in for hard seltzers: \u201cA bit chicer.\u201d) The best gig she has played so far was in Rio last November: \u201cA headline slot at 2.30am. It was wild. And the crowd were insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

An exciting 2026 continues, which she\u2019ll cap off by turning 30 on New Year\u2019s Eve. \u201cI think about Sex and the City \u2014 they were 35 when that was filming, and they were goals. Sat in the slickest, chicest New York restaurants, smoking cigarettes. So I\u2019ve got another six years to peak.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a world where women are pop\u2019s dominant cultural force \u2014 headlining festivals, writing the music to accompany our heartbreaks and hedonism \u2014 she\u2019ll do it easily. \u201cThere\u2019s a vulnerability a lot of women have with the way we write, the way we can see the world and make art with it,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel like it\u2019s a very good year for the girls.\u201d <\/p>\n

Rose Gray\u2019s single Club to Your Arms is out this summer<\/p>\n

Styling Lauren Anne Groves Hair Patrick Wilson at The Wall Group using Oribe Make-up Callie Foulsham using Dior Forever Foundation and Dior Capture Le S\u00e9rum Nails Ami Streets using Dior Manicure Collection, Le Baume and Dior Vernis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rose Gray has been starstruck a few times. There was the time she was at a Gucci show…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-571031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}