Made You Look

Addison Rae knows you can't stop watching her.

-  BY SUZY EXPOSITO

THE WORKING-CLASS GIRL who reinvents herself as a star is a classic, aspirational figure in the greater American mythos. After all, before Marilyn Monroe became the blonde bombshell who rocked the film industry, she was Norma Jeane Baker, a cute brunette working at a munitions factory in Van Nuys, California. Likewise, before there was Addison Rae, the Los Angeles-based TikTok dancer with 88.4 million followers, there was Addison Rae Easterling, a cheerleader from Shreveport, Louisiana, with big dreams. And after more than half a decade of dancing to other people’s songs, that Louisiana-turned-California girl is now ready to bet on herself again in a whole new way—by becoming a bona fide pop star.

I meet the flaxen-haired 24-year-old on a Sunday morning in March, inside her manager's Beverly Hills office, a Spanish-style villa surrounded by tall, manicured hedges. (Rae calls it her second home; her first home is not her actual residence, she says, but her car.) She answers the door barefoot, wearing a black satin halter dress and two Hello Kitty pimple patches on her cheek. “My skin is better in Louisiana,” she says, gesturing toward her face. In a show of Southern hospitality, she hands me two Blue Bottle cups. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I got you a cold brew and a cherry blossom matcha!”

Rae plants herself on the floor in front of the fireplace. She's just returned to Los Angeles from Iceland, where she spent about a week shooting a music video for her new synth-pop song, “Headphones On.” Directed by Mitch Ryan, the video sees her transform from a convenience store checkout girl to a pink-haired Lady Godiva, galloping on a pony on a black sand beach. She shows me her manicure, revealing 10 pointy little Iceland flags on her fingers. As she speaks, she wiggles her glitter-flecked toes just inches away from the fire, literally vibrating with exhilaration. “Iceland was really fun and transformative,” Rae says. “We saw the northern lights!”