Q&a / Audrey Hobert’s journey from Nickelodeon screenwriter to co-writing with Gracie Abrams, to releasing her hit single ‘Sue Me’

Audrey Hobert isn’t clowning herself any more. She was meant to be a pop star.

“I had been sitting on all of this music long enough that there was like a tiny man in my soul beating down the door of my soul,” Hobert, 26, said on a recent rainy morning at Swingers Diner in Hollywood.

This month, the Los Angeles native set out on her Staircase to Stardom Tour across North America, Europe and Australia. Intimate venues will see her perform from her debut album, Who’s the Clown?, released via RCA Records in August.

Though the “Bowling Alley” singer has “so immensely” enjoyed her whirlwind year, music wasn’t always on the cards. After graduating from New York University with a BFA in screenwriting in 2021, she fell into place behind the scenes, working in a Nickelodeon writers’ room for the since-cancelled The Really Loud House.

She teamed up with producer Ricky Gourmet to pin down the perfect level of bubblegum pop and determine when a song was in need of a good saxophone solo. Despite never being cast in a lead role during her “theatre kid” tenure, Hobert’s music exudes main character energy. The first single she put out, “Sue Me”, a high-voltage pop anthem about hooking up with an ex if only to feel wanted for a glimmer in time, reached No 26 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay Chart. The music video accompanying the release – directed by Hobert, as all her videos are – introduced listeners to an artist not afraid to dance like nobody’s watching.

Even though she’s performed only a handful of shows, she already has a dedicated fan base at the ready to belt her most self-aware lyrics at her high-profile live shows – be that an expletive-laced chorus in “Sue Me” or a line about a forgotten pizza pocket in “Sex and the City”.

Over French toast and black coffee, Hobert mused about the career she never saw coming.