Half a century ago and some change, Mae West divined that good girls went to heaven and bad girls—fun girls, that is—went everywhere. Now, the bad girls have proliferated across Hollywood. They’re taking their fresh boob jobs out on the 401 Freeway; they’re finding love in the club; they’re leaving their man just like his father did. The girls aren’t here for heaven. They’re here to listen to Chxrry and to enjoy themselves.

Chxrry, Toronto-born and LA-based pop R&B prophetess, is quite inquisitive this afternoon. “Why do I have such a big ego?” She poses rhetorically over the phone on a bright spring day. “Why am I so hard on myself?” she pushes. We’re discussing the solipsistic temperament of The Artist, and she’s telling me that the further she follows these lines of self-interrogation, the better her discography gets. Another question, posed to the listener via her recent single “Hall of Fame:” “Have you ever seen brand new titties out on the 401?”

Chxrry, (F.K.A Chxrry22), was the first female artist to be signed to the Weeknd’s record label, XO, in 2022. Since then, she’s released EP The Other Side and 2023’s Siren EP, both R&B-leaning records laden with brooding, achy ballads, seeing Chxrry articulate a cutting sadness atop a 6/8 rhythm; her discography telegraphing a longing to know someone, or to be known.

But here on this spring day, three years after Siren (and one since she dropped the 22) Chxrry tells me that her musical aims have shifted. This May, she releases debut LP, U, Me & My Ego, which is demonstrably happier—or, rather, more gleeful. In her own words, Chxrry’s newest music is a lot more faithful to her “full personality.” 

“When I wrote The Other Side, I was very sad—which is not who I am as a person, and so I think the music reflected that. And with Siren, you hear me start to come into myself a little more,” she says. “Post Siren, like, just dropping, ‘Popping Out,’—that was the most me song I had dropped. It was fun, it was like outside just talking shit. It was just so me. If you know me, then you know that’s like my full personality, I don’t take anything serious,” she says.

Indeed, 2024’s “Popping Out (Mistakes)” sees Chxrry regaling a new audience: where her previous records saw her yearning after a lover on a nighttime call or in a drunken monologue, the 2024 single saw her gallivanting away from the telephone; grinning in the mirror; or addressing a fellow brokenhearted soul, daring them to behave badly: “Being a heart broke bitch is out of style!” she jubilates.

And, in the years following, Chxrry’s songs have only gotten more sweat-soaked and self indulgent: 2025 single “Main Character” launched the singer into the TikTok stratosphere, with Chxrry purring over a high-gloss synth, as if both manifesting and instructing the listener: “I’m the main character/I’m the main character/I’m the main character/Bitch, fuck a background!” 

Most recently, Chxrry released “Bottles and Lights,” with friend and collaborator Mariah the Scientist, for whom she opened on her recent Hearts Sold Separately tour. The viral quip, which I’m sure you’ve heard at this point, relays something along the lines of: I’m not your mother, I’ll leave you. Just like your father, I’ll leave you. It’s rude and it’s hilarious and truthful. Who would dare say that to someone they love? Actually, all of us would. Actually, most women would rather leave than be left. Actually, women very much do have the capacity to be vindictive and prideful. Perhaps Chxrry is just bold enough to sing it.

“I want to be the antihero,” Chxrry tells me. “I really don’t give a fuck anymore, and, actually, I want to lean into it.” She tells me that her producer, Believve, “really encouraged” her to lean into “the good, the bad, and the ugly,” on this record. “I was like, ‘Okay, they might rip me apart,’” she relays. “He goes, ‘Yeah, half of them might rip you apart, but the other half will really connect to you. You can only connect when you’re fully being yourself.” 

And, by “half of them” Chxrry is talking millions. Excluding her oeuvre’s ubiquity across short-form social media sites, the singer has accrued a staggering amount of listeners per month across Spotify and Apple Music before the LP has released. In addition to Mariah, she’s toured with the Weeknd and FLO, as well as visited Destin Conrad and Rema onstage. Though years into her career (which started in Toronto, where she sang at weddings until moving to Atlanta and later Los Angeles to pursue artistry full time), it feels, palpably, like U, Me & My Ego will be an inflection point in Chxrry’s career. This May afternoon, one can feel that the woman who is chatting animatedly from a car in Toronto is on the cusp of something much larger, and it feels special to be here.

When I ask her what she wants to remember about this point in her life, 10 years from now, Chxrry laughs. “Ummm… that I was the sexiest bitch ever, that I stayed true to being sexy and having fun and having a good time. I can never look back and think, ‘I should have done this or that!’ No. I want to be able to look back and know that I really seized the day,” she says, her inflection curling upwards with a bit of levity. She speaks, briefly, about the passing of her mother when she was young, and how the grief taught her to lighten her own burden.  “I don’t want to spend my whole life worrying and just taking things so serious,” she continues. “it’s just not that deep…like…global warming! We never fucking know when this whole thing is gonna just wrap itself up!”

Chxrry’s ego is big. Rightfully so. Who else is as playful as her? As vocally talented, as lyrically multifaceted? Who else could take the reins of ambassadorship for those who, honestly, couldn’t care less about the bemoanings of their romantic entanglements? Chxrry isn’t afraid to tell me that “having fun really is my number one priority.” And, c’mon. Look at yourself in the mirror while listening to “Main Character” and ask yourself—isn’t that yours too? 

Photographed by Peidi Zhang

Styled by Eddie Lopez Bautista

Written and produced by Annie Bush

Hair: DAVONTAE at Opus Beauty

Makeup: Matthew Fishman at Lion Heart Makeup

Style Assistants: Tatianna Hechavarria and Christian Flippo

Production Assistant: Ameen Kher

Location: Hotel Indigo