Charli XCX reveals how Brat changed her audience

Charli XCX has said the success of Brat introduced her to a wave of new listeners who did not always fully understand her.

The 33 year old artist has been reflecting on the impact of her 2024 album, her biggest release yet, which reached number one in the UK, New Zealand, Ireland and Australia, as well as number three in the US. The record also sparked the Brat Summer phenomenon and inspired the mockumentary The Moment, where she portrays a fictionalised version of herself.

Looking back on how Brat changed her profile, Charli told Billboard: “I’d been this relatively niche artist, and then had suddenly been opened up to this huge new audience, some of whom really connected with me, some of whom only connected with aspects of me, some of whom liked me, but didn’t really get me.

“How much you’re under scrutiny, in the spotlight, being listened to, watched, is a really interesting thing.

"It made me so acutely aware of how hard that transition can be.”

The film was shot across 29 days and directed by Aidan Zamiri, who helped foster what Charli described as a constant party vibe on set.

She added: "Every single weekend, we would just go out and party. Sometimes Aidan would just blast The Prodigy whilst they were setting up a shot.”

Charli has since begun closing the chapter on the Brat era and is preparing to release her Wuthering Heights companion album, marking a deliberate shift toward new creative territory.

She explained: “Nothing lasts forever — and no one lasts forever.

“I think I’ve always known that. It’s cooler to just leave it all behind.”

The Guess singer said she has enjoyed stepping into a different creative lane.

Speaking at the Sundance Film Festival premiere of the mockumentary last month, she said: “Right now, I’m like — like me in the film — I’m really wanting ‘Brat’ to stop.”

She continued: “I think for all of us as artists, it’s like, you wanna challenge yourself, and you wanna totally switch the creative soup that you’re in and go and live in a different bowl for a while or whatever, you know?

“I really just want to work with these incredible directors like Aidan [Zamiri, The Moment director], Gregg Araki, Cathy Yan, like who I feel like I can just live completely different lives with.”