We know Addison Rae — but who is Addison?

This article originally appeared in the New School Free Press and was edited by Pritika Sharma and Megan Liu. Illustration by Jennifer Chung.

During the GRAMMY Museum event A New York Evening with Addison Rae at National Sawdust venue on Oct. 4, a fan asked how Addison Rae came up with her album title. She said she’d asked her friends what her songs sounded like. “Everybody was like, ‘I don’t know, it just sounds like you,’” Addison said. “I was like, okay, well, it sounds like me, it sounds like me… who am I? Addison.”

Who is Addison Rae? The answer is multilayered. She is an influencer, dancer, podcaster, beauty entrepreneur, actress, and even video game character. With the release of her debut album Addison in 2025, she reinvented herself once again, declaring in her album trailer, “I’m not the same person you used to know.” This time, she’s a pop star. 

Addison Rae rose to fame in 2019 by posting viral TikTok dances, soon joining “The Hype House,” a newly formed collective of young influencers living together in a Los Angeles mansion. In 2021, she released her debut single “Obsessed,” intended as her entry into the music industry, but the track received backlash and the project was eventually shelved. She then pivoted to acting, starring in a Netflix remake of She’s All That.

In 2023, Rae returned to music with her debut EP AR, following leaks of unreleased songs from the earlier project that had been catching fans’ attention on the internet. Shortly after, she started appearing alongside British pop singer Charli xcx and her squad, which includes musicians such as millennial-pushing gay icon Troye Sivan, pop drummer and covert electronic producer George Daniel, hyperpop hero A.G. Cook, as well as celebrities like internet-age renaissance woman Julia Fox. 

In 2024, she was featured on a remix of Charli’s “Von Dutch” with Cook, contributing a single, viral scream that launched her into the music scene once again.

In June 2025, she finally released her debut album Addison — now a bleach-blonde pop darling. She does the interview circuit, now with an all-new breathy Disney-princess voice and, for the first time, singing live. She even appears younger than she did in 2021: gone are the thick, blocked brows and slim-thick physique that were on trend at the time — and traded for pink lips, low-rise bottoms, and a slimmer figure that resembles eternal youth. 

She shifted her live shows and music videos from the stereotypical, LA street dance-inspired 2020s performance style to an avant-garde, timeless, eclectic approach. It’s a masterclass in reinvention, so much so that you could almost forget the time she passionately introduced herself to Donald Trump at a UFC event. Now, she’s a gay icon who endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, and recently denounced ICE on her Instagram story. 

What can we make of such a drastic shift? Earlier this month Addison sat down with journalist Brittany Spanos and collaborators Luka Kloser and Elvira Anderfjärd for an interview and performance hosted by the GRAMMY Museum. Industry figures were everywhere — it was nearly impossible to turn without overhearing talk of a PR internship or spotting an assistant ushering glamorous figures to seats reserved for her record label, Columbia Records. 

At National Sawdust, the lights dimmed as an event sponsor walked onstage to introduce the night’s guest. Quoting Harper’s Bazaar, she called Addison Rae “the next big pop star.” Fans held their breath — then erupted as Addison shyly stepped out in a black latex dress, smiling and waving with the poise of a nervous English royal. A thick sea of iPhones crowded the scene. Everyone wanted a piece of the girl on the stage. 

Spanos asked her about touring and creating the album. This is where Addison shines. It’s clear that she worships pop history, referencing deep-cut Madonna albums, Britney Spears’ Circus, quotes from Prince, and misheard Robyn lyrics her collaborators joke over. 

The interview is sprinkled with “Awws” and “I love you!”s from Addison, every bit the people’s princess she seems determined to become. She performs four songs from her album, transforming entirely when she sings — dramatic, theatrical, and at times a little bit off-pitch. Her voice stays mostly in its feathery register, breaking only to belt the bridge of “Times Like These.” The crowd gives her multiple standing ovations. She closes the set by announcing, “Next stop: Boston,” to no one in particular — gazing wistfully toward a nonexistent horizon, every bit the Broadway main character closing her first act. 

It’s hard to tell where Addison Rae ends and a carefully constructed myth begins. Addison herself has claimed at times that she only joined the TikTok dance fad as part of a long-term scheme to launch a music career. But the evidence doesn’t quite fit. It would be unusual, after all, for an aspiring pop star to stage an elaborate, four year, live-in scheme complete with boyfriends and documented public embarrassment just to set up an eventual successful first album release. 

The truth likely lies somewhere in between. She clearly has a genuine passion for pop music, and it comes through in her interviews, performances, and songs. At the same time, she makes a concerted effort to place herself within the legacy of the “pop girl,” invoking Madonna, Lana Del Rey, and Lady Gaga as benchmarks for her performance inspiration. 

Her sound isn’t compelling because it’s original, in the way Charli xcx’s Brat or Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess succeeded. Instead, she excels at reconstruction. Addison carefully recreates the best of pop, tracing directly Lana’s footsteps on songs like “Summer Forever” and channeling  90s beats on “Headphones On.” 

It’s a stylized version of nostalgia — a carefully curated history lesson designed to craft the ultimate pop star. In that sense, her music parallels the algorithmic-and-data-driven world we live in today where Artificial Intelligence can hand you the ultimate essay in seconds based on analyzing the best of millions of words by real authors. 

On her website, she declares Addison to be “the first and last album by Addison Rae.” It leaves the question hanging in the air: if this is just another persona to add to the collection, was any of it ever real? After hours of interviews and 34 minutes of music, we’re still left wondering who the real Addison Rae is. 

For a self-titled debut, it’s strangely void of authentic identity. She always leaves us to wonder what version of herself she might create next. 

Her fame happened too fast for anyone to see her as a normal person – she was nothing and then she was everything overnight. Every version we’ve ever known has been a celebrity persona. 

Is there even a real Addison to be found? Regardless, her fans will be there. Towards the end of the conversation, an Addison-printed hundred dollar bill was spotted in the crowd. 

Addison Rae will keep following the money, and her fans will be right alongside her. Perhaps that’s exactly what she wants. In the bridge of the first song she performs, “Fame is a Gun” her voice echoes through the room enchantingly with a single line: “Nothing makes me feel as good as being loved by you.”