PinkPantheress Tells Clairo Why It’s All an Act

PinkPantheress used to hide. The 25-year-old British musician blew up on TikTok in 2021, making lo-fi drum‘n bass tracks on GarageBand while studying film in London. Face unseen, name a mystery. That era is over. She’s a pop star now, complete with elaborate music videos, a BRIT Award for Producer of the Year, and the kind of attention that follows you whether you want it or not. But PinkPantheress is still just a character. The person underneath rides the Tube, hangs out with her day ones, and has no interest in Nobu. As she tells her friend Clairo, the separation is the point.

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WEDNESDAY 7 PM FEB. 25, 2026 LONDON

PINKPANTHERESS: How are you, gorgeous?

CLAIRO: I’m good. It’s good to see you. Why are you in the dark?

PINKPANTHERESS: I’m in my bedroom and I was just having an argument with my boyfriend, so I was like, “I need it to not be bright right now.” But I’ll make sure to ask the good, good.

CLAIRO: I thought I was interviewing you?

PINKPANTHERESS: Wait, what? I thought I was asking you!

CLAIRO: I have all my notes here.

PINKPANTHERESS: Bitch, I’m gagged! I was like, hold on.

CLAIRO: Girl, this is for you.

PINKPANTHERESS: [Laughs] Oh, thank god.

CLAIRO: Did you not know that?

PINKPANTHERESS: Claire, I don’t even know what day of the week it is.

CLAIRO: I have your whole life story written down anyway, so it’s perfect.

PINKPANTHERESS: Oh, fabulous. Thank you so much.

CLAIRO: Yay. Okay, so I made a timeline and I called it the Pink Pipeline. It’s everything I know. Your whole story, it’s so mystifying to me. You started as this anonymous underground producer hero, and then you had this face reveal and everyone was like, “Wow, she’s so stunning and hot.” And now you’re Grammy-nominated and you won Producer of the Year. You’re the first woman to win that at the BRITs. It’s so inspiring.

PINKPANTHERESS: Thank you.

CLAIRO: When I hear your story I think about some of my heroes, like Kate Bush, because she produced her own music. She was charting and a huge pop star, but then she stepped away from the spotlight and she’s remained this legend. So my question is, how do you feel about mystery? How do you feel about—

PINKPANTHERESS: Mystique.

CLAIRO: Yeah.

PINKPANTHERESS: That’s actually a question I had for you. [Laughs] I’ve always been shy and I think that’s something you can relate to. I wouldn’t call you introverted in real life, you’re very bubbly, and I’m bubbly too. But online we’re more understated. It’s a, “Let the music do the talking” kind of thing. Or at least that’s how I initially started, before all these silly internet mo- ments with me doing stupid shit.

CLAIRO: [Laughs]

PINKPANTHERESS: I never wanted to show my face because I didn’t want it to affect how my music was received. Not even because of pretty privilege. It was more like, “What if they don’t like how I look? What if they think it doesn’t match up with what they’re listening to?” I think the way I look has actually affected people’s willingness to listen to me. It’s helped me a lot, but it’s maybe made people not want to listen to me as well. I’m way more outside now, I’m more open with my opinions, but there’s part of me that wishes I didn’t do a lot of these things. Maybe it would’ve stunted my career, but sometimes I value mystique over everything else. It’s really beautiful to be someone who hides and then appears when a musical moment happens. Like Kate Bush. She’s one of my inspos as well.

CLAIRO: I do think it’s cool when you pop out and do everything when you’re promoting something. And then you can decide if you want to disappear again.

PINKPANTHERESS: Yeah, for sure.

CLAIRO: The thing that sets you apart for me is that your music videos are always so intricate and huge, and I feel like they’ve become your trademark in a way. Do you think a lot about music videos when you’re making songs?

PINKPANTHERESS: The videos have been such a pivotal part of this era because I was like, “I’m going to try and do the pop thing.” So yes, I think of the videos before anything’s even materialized. I like to give people my ideas and then get the treatments. I studied film, so that’s part of it. I have the kind of brain that says, “This shot should be like this.”

CLAIRO: It’s so cool to watch someone go for everything. You have this confidence and you’re unafraid of going after the wilder ideas. It’s a nice reminder for me that you can actually do everything you want to.

PINKPANTHERESS: Yeah. One thing I’ve been talking to a lot of artists about is how labels these days are so stingy with budgets. I’m not trying to put my label on blast at all, but one of the issues with these videos is that some- times labels don’t trust artists enough with their money.

CLAIRO: That’s true.

PINKPANTHERESS: It’s very frustrating, because as much as the label provides a service, we provide a service. There is no money without the artist’s fan base, without the artists doing these live shows. It’s a very weird transactional relationship with your label where it’s like, “We’ll give you this money if this song does this well.” It removes a lot of the creativity. I have to do a lot of persuading. That’s the thing that upsets me the most about the process of music videos: someone has to approve the budget. I understand that music is a business, but it completely destroys my creative desire.

CLAIRO: I understand, but also to anyone at home, I bet they wouldn’t even realize this would be a struggle for you because of how much success you’ve had.

PINKPANTHERESS: Of course.

CLAIRO: But now you can kind of stand 10 toes down on your ideas, watch them come to life, and prove them wrong when they doubt you.

PINKPANTHERESS: That’s 100 percent what it’s been. For example, my team didn’t want “Illegal” to be a single. Somebody from my label must’ve been like, “It’s crazy that you called that. None of us really saw it coming.” I’ve always made music based on my instincts. I produced “Pain.” I made “Break it off.” I knew these songs had a level of quality that people would admire. Now you can’t release an album before your label hears it, and if their opinions don’t match yours, sometimes you’ll knock heads. But it’s hard to trust them because it’s like, “My writing is the reason you signed me in the first place. Why would I need to change or alter anything about the song, if I’m the reason that I’m signed?”

CLAIRO: Having to defend your reasoning is so difficult, especially if it’s coming from an intuitive place. You have to really explain yourself.

PINKPANTHERESS: For sure.

CLAIRO: So how’s the tour? You’re probably basically burnt out at this point—or are you on a roll?

PINKPANTHERESS: Funnily enough, I just did Laneway, which I know you did last year.

CLAIRO: Yeah.

PINKPANTHERESS: It was so much fun. But all those flights absolutely wrecked me. It really did feel like a little summer camp. But with each flight I was getting sicker and sicker. I even had a little chest infection, and the flights themselves are causing the illness. I have this chronic pain in my throat just from the dry cabin. Mentally I’m fine, but it’s taking a toll on my body. That means I look tired for shoots now, or in interviews I might have a scratchy throat, or I can’t record vocals.

CLAIRO: Right.

PINKPANTHERESS: I’m also getting a weird fatigue from seeing myself online. When I have too many clips going viral at once, I get really in my head. Even if it’s great things, all the eyes on me can be really terrifying. I’m always on such high alert like, “Oh my god, what can I expect today?” That’s been quite overwhelming. Have you been okay mentally?

CLAIRO: I haven’t been doing anything, so I’m fine. [Laughs] But I get burnt out really easily. I get sick every two weeks on tour.

PINKPANTHERESS: It’s horrible.

CLAIRO: Yeah, it takes a certain amount of stamina and confidence and trust in the entire rollout. I like that you take your time with your projects, but then fully immerse yourself.

PINKPANTHERESS: I appreciate that. When I said there are parallels between me and you, I think it’s that at the core of who we are, the music is what leads. Obviously there are people who do an album a year and it’s great, but I need time to research how to produce a certain way, or what to tap into. I try to study the music I’m about to make, so I really immerse myself in a specific sound for a few months or a year. And it goes without saying I want to be able to live a normal life for a little bit. [Laughs]

CLAIRO: That’s where privacy and mystery comes in. Because ultimately it’s very hard to do it when you are so outside.

PINKPANTHERESS: I completely agree with you. When I tell people that, for example, I go on the Tube, they’re always like, “What? When the Hannah Montana wig is off, I’m just an ex-student of UAL [University of the Arts London]. I go out with my graphic designer friends. I’m not at Nobu. I have some eccentricities, but at my core I’m a very simple person, and “simple” and “pop star” are terms people don’t associate together.

CLAIRO: I feel that. I’ve seen you talk about branding and how important it is. That’s something I sort of learned around my last record. If you’re a private person but you have this look or brand, you can hide behind it and find protection and be confident. I can take it off and just be normal, not feel so pressured to keep it up 24/7.

PINKPANTHERESS: That’s one of the reasons I’m so happy my stage name is not my real name. There needs to be some separation—that’s why I can go so hard with these music videos. Because in my head I’m like, well, this isn’t me on the regular, this is me playing into a character. I have to be Pink when I’m onstage dancing, otherwise I go crazy. I lose my sense of self.

CLAIRO: How do you deal with mis- conceptions? Are you like, “Well, they’re criticizing the character, it’s not me?” Or are you like, “Wait, we are the same person, and this does hurt my feelings?” When people criticize my music, I’m okay with it. When people criticize who I am, or my character, I do get a little upset. I take everything personally.

PINKPANTHERESS: I agree with you. I was struggling with my sense of self before this whole branding thing. I didn’t know how I should look. I didn’t really care about styling myself. People used to say I dressed really badly because I didn’t care what I put on. But then it’s like, you’re a pop star, so now you do need to fill in these roles. When I’m in the makeup chair I’m like, “I hate all these products on me but I know I need this makeup because I have to be camera ready.” I have to remove myself.

CLAIRO: It’s out of body.

PINKPANTHERESS: It’s easy to feel bogged down, but my job has only made me so much stronger and better as a person. With fame, people can actually go down really dark roads, and it can lead to self-destruction. But I’ve been lucky enough to say that it’s done nothing but build me into a much better version of myself.

CLAIRO: That’s beautiful. Real diligence got you to this place. And for you to be celebrated for that is such an amazing feeling. You being the first woman to win Producer of the Year [at the 2026 BRIT Awards], on top of this year you’ve already had, is the coolest thing to me.

PINKPANTHERESS: Yeah. Even though there are a lot of front-facing female producers, I feel like a lot of people don’t even know what production is. Genuinely, people were commenting, “What does this mean?” I’ve always been very open about the fact that my skill lies solely in production. If you listen to me expecting good vocals—that’s not what people listen to me for. So when I read people saying, “She can’t sing. Why are we even paying attention?” I’m like, honey, that’s not why people are paying attention. With this award I’m just like, “Thank god I’m being recognized for the thing I actually do best.”

CLAIRO: It’s probably the most full-circle type of recognition you could get.

PINKPANTHERESS: Wait, actually, I was going to ask you, do you produce your own tracks?

CLAIRO: Yeah. That’s why I’ve been so invested in your story. I’m very opinionated in the studio. Nothing flies without my knowledge. Every single thing that’s being added on is through my filter and the filter of people I trust. We’re building up the songs from nothing. That’s why it’s so inspiring to see you win this award. This is what so many girls have been doing in their rooms for so long, and it feels so great to see someone win.

PINKPANTHERESS: Well, I love all your output. And I love watching people review your project because I’m such a nerd. I watched a sample breakdown of your whole thing, and it was fantastic. But I will have to say, yes women producers. I’m shocked that I’m the first winner of this award.

CLAIRO: It matters so much.

PINKPANTHERESS: It does matter. I know it’s the BRITs, but I’m like, “Why hasn’t Claire been nominated? Why hasn’t Rosalía or Imogen Heap won this award yet?” I keep thinking of all the women before me and I’m like, “Why am I the first one?” But I’m grateful for it, and thank you so much, Claire. You know I love you.

CLAIRO: No, I love you. And I’m so obsessed with your work and all your opinions, and all the things you give other young artists and peers. What you offer is so valuable and so cool. It was great talking to you. Go get some sleep.

PINKPANTHERESS: Oh, girl. I need it. Thank you so much, Claire.

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Hair: Anoushka Danielle using Color Wow

Makeup: Joy Adenuga at Forward Artists

Nails: Michelle Class using Joonbyrd

Tailor: Ellen Poppy

Photography Assistants: Will Bruce and Martin Eito

Fashion Assistant: Virginia Pensiero

Production Direction: Alexandra Weiss 

Photography Production: Georgia Ford

On-set Production: Indy Davy

Post-production: Grain Post Production

Location: 63 Sun Studio

Special Thanks: Blondie’s Bar