Later this week, Gracie Abrams will hit the Eras Tour stage at the Rogers Centre as the opener for Taylor Swift. (Maybe you’ve heard of her?)
Maybe you’re so familiar with Abrams that you’ve thrown your volume of Robert Bly poems at a wall as you rage belt out “Us,” her duet with Swift. Perhaps you only know her because your Gen Z cousin refused to play anything but “Close To You” at your last family gathering. Or maybe the first you’d heard of her was when gossip account DeuxMoi posted that Abrams and actor Paul Mescal were spotted looking cosy on the streets of London this summer.
Either way, the 25-year-old singer-songwriter is one of the buzziest names in music right now. Earlier this year, she released an internationally chart-topping album, “The Secret of Us,” currently has the number one song in the U.K., and is nominated for Best New Artist at the 2025 Grammy Awards. Plus, of course, she was the opener on the first American leg of the Eras tour.
To ensure you can sing along to Taylor’s opening act with your whole chest, here’s everything you might want to know about Gracie Abrams before she lands in Tay-ronto.
1. Her best songs straddle genres
Maybe it’s because genres are an increasingly meaningless construct in music or because she’s inspired by Swift’s category switching, but Abrams’ music has variously been categorized as folk, pop and even rock by some. “Close To You,” which she wrote as a teenager and shelved for years, has a distinctly electro-pop vibe, while “I Love You, I’m Sorry” sounds like Billie Eilish spent a weekend in Nashville. Abrams has been writing songs since she was eight, and, fun fact, the songs she wrote about being a teenager that wound up on her first EP apparently inspired Olivia Rodrigo’s hit single “Drivers License.” (Abrams wound up opening for Rodrigo’s GUTS tour last summer.)
2. She’s a nepo baby (kind of)
Gracie’s dad is none other than J.J. Abrams, the creator of hit TV shows including Alias, Lost and Felicity (he also actually wrote their theme music!) and director of multiple recent Star Wars movies. Her mother is Katie McGrath, also a TV producer and co-chair of the family production company, Bad Robot.
We’re not saying Abrams is only famous because she has Hollywood connections (see: Paris Hilton / “Stars Are Blind” for the classic counter-argument) it’s true that not every teenager who dreams of a music career has access to the same connections and resources of someone whose father is a big deal producer who everyone (even, say, an aspiring filmmaker like Taylor Swift) might want to get in the good graces of.
3. She and Taylor Swift are tight
It’s tricky to talk about Abrams without talking about her friend and mentor, Taylor Swift. In fact, her relationship with Swift might be the one she’s benefited most from. Case in point: somewhat unusually for an early career artist. Abrams has worked with both Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff. They are two of the most sought-after producers in the industry — and frequent Swift collaborators.
It’s not entirely clear how the two met (Abrams has told an unlikely story about getting a text out of the blue from a random number that turned out to be Swift), but in the past three years they’ve been thick as thieves. Abrams attended Swift’s 34th birthday party last December, and they’ve been spotted going out to dinner. Famously, Abrams released this video of the two of them almost setting Swift’s kitchen on fire when they were writing “Us,” the duet that appeared on Abrams’ second album this year.
4. She campaigned for Kamala Harris
Abrams stumped for Kamala Harris in the recent U.S. presidential election, and took some flack for “mixing music with politics” from her 3.7 million Instagram followers. “For many of us here on stage or in this crowd tonight, this is the first time we’ve had the privilege of voting in a presidential election,” Abrams told a rally in Wisconsin. “As we know, we’ve inherited a world that is struggling, and it’s easy to feel disconnected and disillusioned. Between the advent of social media in our childhoods and COVID and relentlessly targeted disinformation, we’ve been through some things.” It’s easy to be discouraged, she went on to tell the crowd, “but we know better.”
5. She’s often papped with Paul Mescal
Like many musicians, Abrams’ relationships frequently become fodder for lyrics. For example, “That’s So True,” going viral on TikTok, is about a messy breakup from someone the internet is currently trying to suss out. If paparazzi pics and gossip accounts are to be believed, Abrams’ next album may well feature songs inspired by Mr. Gladiator II himself, Paul Mescal. Tittle-tattle has it that they’ve been seeing each other since the summer, although a source told PEOPLE “they’ve been hooking up and its early stages.”
