Gracie Abrams is swiping through her iPhone photos, which she’s sorted chronologically by Valentine’s Days. There was the one with her first boyfriend. The one she spent with her roommates in their Barnard University dorm. The one where she “made out with this cute boy at a bar after one of my New York shows.”
Then all the Valentine’s Days she chose to just spend working on her music. “But I’m not a hater at all,” she says about what the holiday stands for, about the idea of collectively celebrating some form of romantic ideal.
“What I love about a healthy relationship is that your life doesn’t radically change,” she continues. “You just fit into each other in a way that feels positively challenging and deeply supportive—it’s like a place to land.” (Even if Gracie won’t divulge more specifics, real stans can only assume she’s talking about her relationship1 with actor Paul Mescal.2) The fact that the 25-year-old singer-songwriter is dissecting her preference for secure attachment styles is surprising. Right before we meet for pizza and orange wine at Gjelina, one of her favorite restaurants in Los Angeles, “That’s So True,” her brutal ballad about an illusive ex-lover, earned Gracie her first-ever Top 10 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.
1. While the two haven’t spoken publicly about their romance, they’ve been photographed together plenty of times, including at the premiere in November and at a December Saturday Night Live after-party.
2. Even realer stans remember Paul wearing Gracie’s merch way back in 2020.
And while she’s certainly not the first artist to turn romantic rejection into a series of bangers about intense heartache that are made for screaming and sobbing on repeat (“That’s So True” now has more than 400 million Spotify streams), the song does showcase her unique ability to articulate what intimacy feels like for her incredibly anxious, lonely, and online generation.
Members of that generation are currently hovering outside the restaurant, clenching stickered phones and preparing to approach Gracie. She only just flew in from Vancouver the night before, after wrapping her final set on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, and is wearing the outfit her 4.3 million Instagram followers have come to know as her uniform: black Cole Escola Oh, Mary! baseball hat, light-blue cropped t-shirt barely covering her midriff, and baggy track pants.
It’s common for a celebrity in a hat and sunglasses to meet a writer for a secluded dinner for a magazine story but far less typical for a pop star to show up at a buzzy restaurant the morning after performing on one of the biggest tours in the world, in front of one of the most powerful fandoms on the planet, in something especially recognizable.
Still, Gracie remains unfazed, not breaking our eye contact and continuing to ask me questions (“Are you in love?” “Do you feel secure and happy right now?”). She has enough reasons to feel comfortable: We’re not too far from where she went to high school. Her parents’ house3 is nearby. And I’ve interviewed her multiple times for various magazines and been a presence at pretty much all of her shows—from 2020’s Gracie’s Bedroom Tour to when she opened for Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour Tour to her time with Taylor Swift. I’ve also watched her fame and following grow as she attended the 2024 Met Gala, performed on Saturday Night Live,4 collected Grammy nominations, and dropped her latest album, The Secret of Us.
3. Gracie is the daughter of J.J. Abrams and TV producer Katie McGrath. The two are regulars at her shows and huge Gracie fans.
4. SNL was a dream Gracie confessed to me over too many tequila sodas at a dive bar three years ago after one of her shows in Brooklyn.
And yet, she says her ability to feel secure is what she’s the most proud of. She wants the same for her fans, who are prone to crying and hugging each other at her shows. The emotional attachment is mutual, explains Gracie, who is also known to tear up onstage.“I feel like we are growing up together,” she says, as if speaking directly to them. “There’s nothing I won’t tell you.”
Because this is Cosmo’s Love Issue and we’re talking about Valentine’s Day, what does love feel like for you right now?
Home. My current form of love feels like home no matter where I am. If you’ve ever felt unsafe in a relationship, it’s really evident when you do feel safe in one. Women are fed so many voices when it comes to what love should be or feel like. But in my experience, love feels best when you’re asking yourself: What do you want? What is hot for you? What is sexy to you? Where do you feel safest? There’s literally nothing better than being with somebody where you’re not putting on a performance.
Okay, so what is sexy to you?
To be honest, I feel the sexiest when I feel the strongest physically. I’m someone who notices a difference in my mood on the days I’ve worked out versus not. It’s a relationship I work on with myself often. During COVID, when we were all home, I started doing Pilates workout videos in an obsessed way and it became unhealthy.
What made you realize it was unhealthy?
I would have people who have known me forever and who I trust and love being like, “Are you good?” We all grew up with so many expectations on our bodies. I have had to work really hard to unpack all of it, and since I have the privilege of being onstage in front of so many young people every night, I want to be a person that I’m proud of.
How does it feel that the internet is talking about your abs right now and that everyone is demanding you share your workout routine?
It has gotten kind of out of hand. There’s no end to the discourse on women’s bodies, like Jesus fucking Christ! Shut up! It’s not complicated! It’s not your body. I don’t have a routine. I swear on my life.
I know you’re an advocate for therapy. Has your therapist been helpful as you navigate all this attention?
I’ve had the same therapist since I was 19, but I’ve honestly been on a break. Every journal entry for the past three weeks has been,“I have to text her! I have to text her! I have to text her!”
I’ve been avoiding it, which is not because of anything other than being avoidant. There’s no excuse. Even if you’re doing it during a busy time in your life, therapy only ever helps. Therapy is so wildly important and valuable. I really believe everyone should go to therapy and I do think therapy has been really helpful for me, especially when it comes to healthy relationships.
There are quite a few theories online that your attachment style is anxious, not secure like we’ve been talking about.
I will write until I die about feeling rejected if I don’t get a text back within five seconds of sending one—but I actually do feel quite secure in my romantic attachments. The bar is very high in my relationships. It’s not appealing to me to not feel settled and seen, so I don’t date people who make me feel like that. I would rather be single for the rest of my life than feel uneasy in a relationship.
Can you tell me about the first time you fell in love?
I was in high school and I was an idiot. Do you ever have the urge to go back and apologize to everyone who knew you before you figured your shit out? That’s how I feel about high school. Falling in love at that time felt pretty obsessive. I loved everything about him.5 I felt so inspired and motivated by him, and he was my best friend. It was real love.
5. Gracie is likely referencing Blake Slatkin, her high school boyfriend who produced some of her earlier work.
Did that end up also being your first big breakup?
Yes. It was one of those things where there were a couple different versions of the breakup. The first time, I felt so guilty about it that I wanted to reach out all the time. But instead, I kept a running note in my phone and would write down everything that I wanted to say. I now tell all my friends going through breakups to do the same. I promise you it works. And then you have all your receipts.
You wrote most of your record This Is What It Feels Like at Barnard in 2019. I’ve told you this before, but I always think the song “Feels Like” is about sex.
Since you said that, I’ve literally thought about it every single time that song comes on. It’s about me and my friend taking a ridiculous amount of edibles and not leaving my apartment because we were too afraid to encounter people in the outside world. It’s about life being actually really cool and good when you have someone to take edibles with.
Do you go out into the outside world a lot more now?
No, I don’t go out at all, especially in Los Angeles. But do you know what was the most fucking fun I’ve had in a long time? Charli XCX’s birthday party. You know when you’re the exact right amount of drunk? You don’t even feel bad the next day. And all night, you’re riding this high that’s so fun and social. I don’t party often, but at Charli’s birthday, I was really, genuinely, sincerely excited and emotional about seeing people I hadn’t seen in a really long time. It was heaven. And there was dancing. I wish it was her birthday every single week.
Will you go out for Valentine’s Day?
I will be touring in Germany, but I actually have a few days off. My plan right now is to fly to Paris and hopefully my producer Aaron Dessner and I will write a song we love in his studio in France. All of my songs are love letters in one way or another, so that’s my Valentine.
Do you have any sex advice to share?
I’ve only more recently become proud of my sex life. The best I’ve ever felt during sex is when I have been performing the least in the moment. I think that comes from being in relationships with people who see me for who I am and who respect, love, and cherish me. People who actually want to learn about me and my body. But this is newer for me, too.
Is there anything you wish you knew earlier about sex?
Porn is bullshit. It is dangerous, not real, and a performance. It’s really dangerous for young people for that to be their introduction to sex. I remember growing up reading Cosmo and it being like “six tips to give the most rocking blow job ever,” and you’re like, “Holy fuck.”
I had a lot of questions....I took to the internet for answers, which is frightening to think about now. Young people need to learn about sex from a reputable resource like Cosmo or a strong mentor, not just scrolling aimlessly online like I did.
It’s great that you feel comfortable speaking so candidly about sex. You’re known as a “Taydaughter,” but I don’t know if Taylor Swift or your other peers would be equally as open.
I couldn’t be more different from Taylor. We are different in all the ways that my friends and I are different or that you and I are different. Taylor is an athlete, a brilliant businessperson, and a genius writer. She’s a grounded human being who makes time for everyone in her life. It’s been really cool to be in the orbit of a person like her. There’s also nothing that comes close to what she has done. People will still gaslight her and her capabilities and all this shit. But please point me to one man who has come close to defining pop culture in this way. There is nothing! But people are not ready for that conversation.
Have you introduced anyone you’ve dated to Taylor Swift?
Yes. And last year when I was breaking up with my then-boyfriend, after talking to Taylor, I felt very backed by my decision. I felt deep support. Talking to her helped me maintain my stance in the breakup. And, of course, her songs help me through any breakup. They’re all one big love poem.
What’s the best love poem of all time?
Have you read Vow by Emily Jungmin Yoon? And My Dead Friends by Marie Howe. Holy fuck. Those are some of the best poems about love. I’d recommend reading them this Valentine’s Day. I’ll send them both to you right now.6
6. I can confirm both are incredible.
Cover: Vintage top and skirt, ERL archive.
Hair: Bobby Elliot at The Wall Group. Makeup: Emily Cheng at The Wall Group. Manicure: Stephanie Stone at Forward Artists. Set design: Lizzie Lang at 11th House Agency. Production: Tightrope Production.