BELLAH MAE

When Bellah Mae uploaded a snippet of her debut single, the grungy pop punk stomper ‘Boyfriend Of The Year’, to TikTok, she had a feeling that the song would pop off. The 21-year-old had spent years writing over 100 songs and nearly 12 months sharing covers on TikTok, but she was reluctant to upload any original material. Then she wrote ‘Boyfriend Of The Year’ and immediately knew that it was the right song to kick everything off. “It was one of those songs that just writes itself,” she says. “It was written in an hour. In fact, I actually sent my dad a message the night it was written saying, ‘I just wrote a career launching song.’ And we had.”

Bellah isn’t exaggerating. Shortly after she teased the song on TikTok, the video racked up over 1 million views. Comments began pouring in about how the song’s deeply relatable lyrics – about watching a toxic ex-boyfriend treat their new partner with the respect they never showed you – resonated, the internet’s many broken-hearted people recording their own videos using the song to express their own relationship woes. “I wrote it from my personal experiences, but the number of messages I’ve had from girls and guys sending me paragraphs about their own situations is incredible,” Bellah says. “As a songwriter, it’s confirmation that I’m doing something right.”