Madison7Beer

Madison Beer has been hunkered down on Long Island since the coronavirus pandemic led to lockdowns across the country. The 21-year-old rising pop star has spent her time picking up hobbies: learning French, chipping away at a long list of movies she’s been wanting to watch. Between activities, she’s been looking back and caring for her mental health. “This is a scary and difficult time for a lot of people, including myself,” she says, calling from her home. “So I’m making sure that I’m aware of when I spiral or get upset.” Self-reflection is also helping prepare Beer for a major career milestone: the release of her debut full-length album, Life Support, which has been finished and ready to put out for months. But Beer’s fans have been patient with her for eight years now: The singer was signed to Island at age 13 after Justin Bieber discovered her singing Etta James on YouTube. Being signed to a label, of course, didn’t mean Beer was automatically shot into superstardom. She was put on the Radio Disney bubblegum-pop track due to her young age, but had more soulful aspirations in the vein of the icons she had been covering on YouTube, like James and Lauryn Hill. “I was always told, ‘Well, one day when you’re older, you’ll be able to make that stuff,’ ” she says. “But then I realized that I don’t need to be older to do it.” She started verbalizing her feelings about her sound and refused to align with the box she had been put in, leading to a planned album being scrapped. By 16, with only a few singles released, Island dropped her, leaving Beer with unfulfilled buzz and an uncertain future. “I felt like I had failed. Especially at 16 years old, obviously it feels like everything is the end of the world, so it just felt like everyone had given up on me,” Beer says. “It really hurt and discouraged me in a lot of ways.”