Earlier this month, Charli XCX joined Substack. It’s not odd for a pop star to want to share thoughts in a more long-form, newsletter setting (her friend Lorde notably kept a long-running tour diary well before the Substack boom in recent years). But her first two posts do contain some big reflections on her life as a pop star, specifically her feelings about existing as one in this current moment.
“After my previous album, Brat, I had this feeling that I wouldn’t be able to make music anymore,” she wrote in the debut newsletter titled “Running on the spot in a dream.”
“When I vocalized this, George [Daniel, her husband] said ‘Yeah, but you always feel this way. We all do.’ And he’s right, we do, but it felt so potent this time, sort of like being hit by a truck and left on the side of the road to bleed out.”
Later in the post, XCX admitted to something that feels clear from the number of acting roles and soundtrack-writing gigs she’s taken on in between touring Brat. “As some of you may know I’m currently feeling more inspired by film than I am by music,” she wrote. She’s currently attached to nine upcoming films as an actress. Her next album is a conceptual soundtrack for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation and she wrote original songs inspired by and for the Anne Hathaway-led Mother Mary. “Film is where my creative brain seems to be gravitating. I’m enjoying acting, I’m enjoying writing, I’m enjoying watching and I’m above all enjoying discovering a new craft.”
Her comments would be more shocking if it didn’t feel like so many other pop stars around her age weren’t expressing similar emotions. Over the course of two Wicked press tours, Ariana Grande has made clear that while she has no plans to abandon pop stardom, her music career is going to start looking a lot different for the foreseeable future. During an episode of Good Hang With Amy Poehler, she spoke about her upcoming 2026 tour as a “last hurrah.”
“I’m very excited to do this small tour, but I think it might not happen again for a long, long, long, long time,” she said. “So I’m going to give it my all and it’s going to be beautiful and I think that’s why I’m doing it, because it’s like, one last hurrah.” Grande has also emphasized a newfound creative spark in acting; being cast in Wicked almost made her consider leaving music behind entirely.
“I didn’t think I was gonna make an album ever again,” Grande said on the podcast Shut Up Evan. “When I left for London, that was kind of my secret, but I didn’t think I was going to.”
Selena Gomez shared a familiar disinterest in making her music career a priority. Both Gomez and Grande had similar trajectories, having both cut their teeth as child stars who balanced both worlds before focusing on successful pop careers in their twenties. In recent years, Gomez has found acclaim on the Emmy-nominated Hulu series Only Murders in the Building and the Oscar-nominated Emilia Perez.
“I started having a lot of fun with music and then touring was really fun. But I was doing my TV show at the same time [Wizards of Waverly Place], and I just found it really fun so I just kept going but the older I get, the more I’m kind of like, I would like to find something to just settle on,” she reflected last year. “I do feel like I have one more album in me, but I would probably choose acting [if asked to pick between it and music].”
Even the pop stars who are still dedicated to making music are reframing what their careers looked like in the past. After releasing The Life of a Showgirl, Taylor Swift made clear that she would not embark on another tour anytime soon, especially one as extravagant as her two-year Eras Tour run.
“I am so tired when I think about doing it again because I’d want to do it really well again,” she told BBC Radio 1.
Miley Cyrus has emphasized her own lack of desire to tour again. Her last proper headlining tour was in 2014 in support of Bangerz. She has since done one short promotional tour in 2015 (for Dead Petz) and a run of festival appearances, with the last taking place in 2022. During an appearance on Good Morning America this summer, she spoke about her choice to not plan one following her last few albums, pointing to the importance of maintaining her sobriety and her mental health.
“I do have the physical ability, and I have the opportunities to tour,” she said. “I wish I had the desire, but I don’t.”
This much is clear: the younger millennial pop stars are burning out on being pop stars. And why wouldn’t they be? In this present moment, the rewards for creativity have diminished and the fans and general public have become as demanding and ravenous as the labels have always been. Many have turned to the stability and larger team effort of a Hollywood set or the abundance in branding a product they can sell.
Rihanna was an early but less vocal defector in this class of pop stars. It’s been nearly 10 years since she’s released an album or embarked on a tour. In lieu of either, she’s built a beauty and fashion empire that has become her sole focus and passion. (Both Grande and Gomez followed suit on this lucrative path, with their own beauty brands raking in a significant portion of their empires).
While none of the other artists who have vocalized some disinterest seem capable of disappearing from the charts or the road for as long as Rihanna has, the demands of maintaining a level of both creativity and chart success has seemingly worn them down. The joy of being a pop star has been sucked out of them, the same joy and sometimes destructive dive to stay at the top that has kept previous generations of stars like Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Janet Jackson, Cher and numerous others still on the road and releasing new music past the age of 50. Many of those same stars found a balance of music with film and other creative pursuits, taking their time to explore a movie or show in between classic albums.
But the rewards, the pace and the stakes have changed and seemingly become untenable. Great risks are shunned and quantity matters of quality. Is the work more grueling than before or is this particular set of pop stars less inspired by what’s left than previous generations?
In XCX’s second newsletter, she tapped into the “realities of being a pop star.” Her experience mixes the glamorous limousines and fashion and parties that comes with the celebrity status as well as the “strange and soulless liminal spaces” in between: the holding room at an event, a windowless green room, an all-night van ride. But most importantly, she highlights the feeling the limitations that come with being perceived as a pop star, a constant liminal space built by internet discourse and comments. The burden that may be making XCX and her peers feel trapped in the pop star box more than past stars have felt or expressed this way:
“I think subconsciously people still believe there is only room for women to be a certain type of way and once they claim to be one way they better not DARE grow or change or morph into something else,” she wrote. By the end she makes clear the type of pop stars she aspires to and maybe misses.
“I don’t care if they tell the truth or lie or play a character or adopt a persona or fabricate entire scenarios and worlds. To me that’s the point, that’s the drama, that’s the fun, that’s the FANTASY.”
