Addison Rae is on a Grammy-nominated track. It’s quite the turn, given her long-troubled debut EP AR, or back in 2021, when she starred in the much-maligned He’s All That remake, and before that, after her debut single “Obsessed” had Rae all but laughed off the internet by irony-poisoned bloggers and commentariat alike.
Yet here she is, Grammy-nominated alongside Charli xcx for “Von dutch remix featuring Addison Rae.” Her song “Diet Pepsi” broke the Billboard Hot 100 with her follow-up single “Aquamarine” not far behind it, should fortune continue to favor the TikTok generation’s least-liked, most-watched dancer-turned-pop sensation.
Rae’s pivot away from an emblematic failure of her platform’s ability to form superstars at all is impressive, if wildly unexpected. Realistically, most didn’t think Rae capable of it, myself included. Just about the only people who believed in her, besides the C-suite at WME and Charli xcx’s extended sophomore class of bubbling-under cult pop fixtures, was that gay guy on TikTok locked in a Sisyphean struggle attempting to make his “Diet Pepsi” dance go viral.
Consider me a recent, if totally hypocritical, convert.
Several somethings have transformed Rae’s artistic output, by her own admission. In a Vogue profile on the eve of her debut EP’s release, she told the mag: “When I start doing something, I want to know everything there is to know about it. I’ve been learning so much about new sounds and new producers over the past few years, but I always want to know, What else is there? Where does the inspiration for this come from?” This curiosity led her to SOPHIE and Arca, saying, “I mean, I would love to work with Arca, obviously! I just love her sound, and I think she’s so cool.” Charli xcx also joined the fray, telling Vogue in that aforementioned profile: “She was like no one I’d ever met really. Not jaded. Not faking. Not uncomfortable. Not trying to be anything other than herself.”
The urgent desire to overcome her early failures almost drove her from the music industry for good, a fact which seems almost quaint now. Along the path, she came upon New York fashion luminaries like Dara Allen and Mel Ottenberg, the former having styled Rae for various excursions, the latter directing the music video for “Diet Pepsi” and creative directing the video for “Aquamarine.”
Allen is of particular interest, herself being connected to Ottenberg via her role as Interview’s fashion director, as well as a greater network of connections forming under the new pop hierarchies. Prior to her work on the “Aquamarine” video, Allen also styled Troye Sivan’s music video for “One Of Your Girls,” alongside an industry-redefining string of styling credits for Hunter Schafer this year. One of the more notable outings with Rae was her Madonna-esque Miss Claire Sullivan set at the MTV VMA’s, which piqued the curiosity of the fashion and culture press alike.
Sivan is likewise Charli xcx’s most frequent guest star, having recently embarked on a co-headlining world tour with the latest head bitch of pop. Rae, for her part, performed with the pair at Madison Square Garden. In an Instagram Story after the festivities, she wrote of Sivan: “I'm actually in love with troye. You don't understand.. when we touched heads during Diet Pepsi I had butterflies and then couldn't even look at him again.” The feeling, for what it’s worth, seems mutual.
Early critics of Rae’s entrance into the wider culture — myself included, to be totally clear — often mentioned her background as a TikTok something-or-other, or that Jimmy Fallon clip, or the numerous discourses around authorial credit and cultural ownership on social media. Interesting, in hindsight, considering that early springboard from TikTok into say, The Kardashians B-unit filming schedule. I remember describing the situation to an editor, at the time, in 2020, saying that I couldn’t imagine a world where programmatic dance videos translated to career longevity or even notoriety. At best, I saw the platform as akin to YouTube, whose stable of longtime stars have struggled to broach the mainstream, instead relegated to perma-collab videos and second winds at Twitch streamers.
How childish I feel now, looking back on that unnecessarily firm position. Doja Cat had already broken through in part because of the platform, and Chappell Roan’s own utilization likely stands as the gold-standard approach for future hopefuls. (If my frequent conversations with industry players are anything to go by.) If anything, the Hype House she was formed inside looks less like YouTuber collabs in the rearview mirror, and more like The All-New Mickey Mouse Club run by venture capitalists and convergent social media algorithms. The stalled careers of its lesser-known denizens on the frontiers of the new social media paradigm are an interesting parallel to the Club’s forgotten Mouseketeers, who starred on the revival from 1989 to 1996. Like the Hype House’s hopefuls, they were promised fame in exchange for intense work conditions under the shadow of a suddenly changed Hollywood, fresh off the rise of home video sales and the proliferation of cable TV.
Despite its waning relevance in current times, the Hype House proved to be an excellent training ground for Rae, herself being a lifelong dancer prior to breaking through on TikTok in 2019 during her freshman year of college at Louisiana State University. If her curiosity is innate, then at the least she learned the power in collaboration, in pooling resources with fellow creatives, a word I stretch to its loosest definition. Beyond Allen, Charli, or Ottenberg, her recent collaborators include indie darling director Sean Price Williams, alongside other fashion and music movers and shakers: iconoclastic photographer Petra Collins, choreographer to the pop divas Danielle Polanco, makeup savant Pat McGrath — just to name a few, really. Then there’s the list of designers she’s worn, from Thom Browne to Alberta Ferretti and just about everyone in between.
How changed this world is! How full it feels of utter possibility, totally unknown to over-seasoned critics and naysayers like myself. I once decried the sudden appearance of Addison Rae as an omen of certain doom. Perhaps not, but change most certainly. The Grammys are still a ways off, and the statuette is owed specifically to Brat-in-Chief Charli XCX, although Rae will certainly share in the fruits of the last 15 years. Almost like Eve in the Garden of Good and Evil, poised to take a bite of the fruit of forbidden knowledge and alter our world forever. Will be we cast out into the great unknown with her, condemned forever? It might not be so bad. What is it that Charli said? Oh, right: “Bumpin’ that (Addison Rae).”
Photos via Getty
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