“Your rebrand needs to be studied,” reads the top comment on one of Addison Rae’s recent Instagram posts. The image, taken on a polaroid, is of Addison and two friends throwing up the ‘LA’ sign with their hands, posing in bikinis and trucker hats. Addison’s cap reads “Not that innocent.”
The grungey, 2010s-esque post is a far cry from the content that sent Addison’s career stratospheric. After joining TikTok in mid 2019, the then-teenager quickly found fame on the app thanks to her dance videos. Despite the occasional provocative move (and relationship drama with other TikTokers), her image was a relatively clean one. Her family often featured in her videos and with her relatively simple style, she was, intentionally or not, very much marketed as a ‘girl next door.’
Then, something began to change. When the 2020s took hold, Addison’s career began to crest, with the star enjoying a still-growing social media following, a star role in cheesy teen drama film He’s All That, and a cameo on Keeping Up With The Kardashians. But as tends to happen to young women who shoot to stardom at pace, the collective mood changed with equal speed and the internet turned on her.
Then—after clearing her Instagram profile entirely—in May 2024, Addison reintroduced herself with a post announcing her feature on the remix of Charli XCX’s ‘Von Dutch’. She had the covetable approval of Charli, aka Brat-in-Chief; the tie to whom would be strengthened with a joint performance in June. Her next post? A topless shot with two cans of Diet Pepsi, which would foreshadow the release of her latest single.
On August 9, the newly-minted pop star dropped her first solo track since 2023. Like her aesthetic, her sound had been done over, with classic pop tunes replaced by a Lana Del Rey-influenced form of melancholic hyperpop. In her 180, Addison has come to embody what we want from a modern pop star: someone who is a little bit messy, a little bit sexy and—to our eye, at least—authentically themselves.
Since her “rebrand,” she’s shot with cult cool-girl photographer Petra Collins and even been tipped as an option to play Britney Spears in her upcoming biopic—there’s no denying she’s an it girl. Most recently, she stepped out at the 2024 VMAs wearing underwear and a tutu (Britney, hello?).
But, as she told Interview in her recent cover story, “Girl, nobody’s rebranding. This is me.”
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