Audrey Hobert on Her Sleeper Hit, Staying Offline and Opening for Charli XCX

Audrey Hobert's "Sue Me" took 15 months to reach the Billboard Hot 100 — and when it finally charted in August 2026, it became her first entry there. The single came out in May 2025. That's a sleeper hit by any measure, powered, as Hobert's fans will tell you, by rhyming "Bacardi" with "Pilates."

The 27-year-old released her debut album, Who's the Clown, more than a year ago. In a new episode of the Rolling Stone Studio, she looked back on the year since: touring the world with trampolines and stilts in her live show, keeping her distance from social media, and preparing to open for Charli XCX across Europe and the U.K. next year.

What made the album work?

Hobert's approach was unusually simple: no rules, just instinct. She wrote Who's the Clown without ever having made an album before.

"I always say the most magical thing about writing this album was, it was my first time doing it," Hobert told Rolling Stone. "And so, I felt very overcome by what I felt was the truth, and that is: There are no rules to this. As long as I can go to bed having written a chorus, wake up and remember it, as long as I feel it's catchy, as long as I feel like I'm saying something true about myself or my life, then it's a hit."

She credits Steve Martin as a formative influence — not through his films, which she mostly hasn't seen ("I don't even think I've seen Pink Panther"), but through his comedy albums, like 1977's Get Small, which her father played constantly. "My dad was such a big fan of him," she said. Watching Martin's Apple TV documentary around the time she started writing songs, she noticed something that stuck: Martin tried several stage personas, and "when he decided to let his freak flag fly and be totally strange is when everything clicked and he got mega famous."

Why does she stay off social media?

Here's the practical question her year raises: what does a chart breakthrough change for an artist who'd rather not post? For Hobert, the answer is tension — between visibility and her own instincts.

"I think it's bad, more than it is good," she said of social media. "Before I was a singer, I would often get really annoyed by singers specifically on Instagram. I just was like, 'Can you get out of my face?' And now, I feel that I'm just in people's faces too much."

She applies the same logic to comment sections. "I feel physically gross if I keep reading comments," she said. "My body will not allow me to, and I just don't want to see something that might hurt my feelings, so I just stay away."

Who else is she into?

A few loyalties surfaced in the conversation:

• Nathan Fielder. She called his Comedy Central series Nathan For You "devastatingly hilarious," adding: "I think a lot of people do find Nathan for You uncomfortable and hard to watch. I'm not that way."
• John Wilson. Hobert was heading to see his new film The History of Concrete; Fielder executive produced Wilson's HBO series How To With John Wilson.
• Charli XCX. Hobert has been "silently to myself, all year really obsessed with her." Listening to Charli's new album Music, Fashion, Film on a zigzag walk through a park near her hotel in Columbus, Ohio, she felt the highest compliment she can pay an artist: "I want to write a song."

What about the Friends questions?

Hobert wrote "Phoebe," a whimsical tribute to Lisa Kudrow's Friends character, so the sitcom follows her everywhere. "I think I've probably been asked 200 times if I watch Friends," she said. "I would never pay homage to something that I didn't think was a timeless classic."

Is she worried about the sophomore slump?

Most artists dread the second album after a beloved debut. Hobert doesn't, and her reasoning is blunt: worry breeds more worry.

"All I can do is be present," she said. "Know what's bad for me, know what's good for me, try not to rot my brain out of my skull, read books, see movies... The sophomore curse. Manifesting is real, and I think worry brings more of the same. Why worry? Life is short, life is good. So, if it's bad, that'll be my fault. And if it's good, that will also be my fault."

She's also candid about Grammy ambitions. She attended the 2024 Grammys as Gracie Abrams's guest — "It was the best night of my life," she said, recalling crying through a ceremony featuring Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Doechii and Kendrick Lamar. Next year, she could be nominated herself.

For now, the schedule does the talking: arenas in Europe and the U.K. with Charli XCX, a second album on her own terms, and a comments section she has no plans to reopen.