TONIGHT is the biggest date in British music — and all eyes will be on Charli XCX who is tipped to take home a bag full of gongs.
She was honoured with the Songwriter of the Year award this week, but also leads nominations for the ceremony at London’s O2 Arena.
Charli XCX is tipped to win big at this year’s Brit Awards on Saturday[/caption]
Charli had a huge 2025 thanks to her critically acclaimed album Brat[/caption]
Charli now wants to try acting (pictured filming 100 Nights Of Hero which stars Emma Corrin)[/caption]
She is up for Artist, Album and Song of the Year, as well as Dance Act and Pop Act thanks to the runaway success of 2024’s most critically acclaimed album, Brat.
However, while the 32-year-old is anything but an overnight success, she is now poised to go out on a high, leaving music behind to become an actress.
Charli said: “It’s probably no music for a while . . . quite a while.
“I also want to act now. I’m already there and thinking about that stuff a little bit more.
“The success of Brat and the success of the marketing of Brat is also, in ways, a curse.
“I’ll pivot but whatever I do next will be compared. I’m aware that whatever comes next will be the albatross, so to speak.”
Only child Charli, whose real name is Charlotte Aitchison, grew up in Essex and started making music aged 14, taking her stage name from her display moniker on chat site MSN Messenger.
At school she was being made fun of, but at home she was figuring out who she would later become.
Recalling her school days, Charli, whose mum is of Gujarati Indian descent, told GQ: “I always felt like a loser.
“I had friends, but my school was full of blonde white girls and I was this half-Indian girl with frizzy hair and different interests.
“That always made me feel a little bit rejected. I thought if I made music, people would think I was interesting.
“Deep down, one of my biggest fears was being boring.”
She said she would also be teased for having a monobrow, but added to Vogue: “Now, everyone is always complimenting me on my hair and eyebrows.
“So to all the people who made fun of me, the joke’s on you I guess.”
Charli started sharing her lo-fi songs on Myspace.
She persuaded her mum Shameera, a nurse and flight attendant, and dad, Scottish entrepreneur Jon, to take her to illegal raves in East London to perform.
She said: “My mum, in particular, was terrified.
“She grew up in Uganda and never really drank and never smoked a cigarette.
“She came from a Muslim family where the idea of a 14-year-old going to a rave was completely alien.”
What followed was a short-lived stint at art school before writing and singing on I Love It for Swedish duo Icona Pop, which went to No1 in 2012.
‘TOO OBSCURE’
Her debut album True Romance in 2013 bombed.
But the following year felt like her big break, topping the charts in the US and reaching No5 here collaborating with Iggy Azalea on Fancy, then getting another global Top Ten hit with Boom Clap, written for the soundtrack of teen movie The Fault In Our Stars.
In 2015 she released second album Sucker, which peaked at No15 and failed to quite strike the right chord.
Frustrated, Charli turned to the underground and released her noisy, experimental pop EP Vroom Vroom, followed by two mixtapes, Number 1 Angel and Pop 2, which were deemed too obscure by her record label.
Recalling the reaction to 2016’s Vroom Vroom, she said: “My record label was like, ‘What the f*** is this?’
“No one got it, apart from a handful of pretty hardcore fans.”
As a megafan myself, I saw her play tiny venues for years and remember one particularly sweaty and raucous show at East London’s Village Underground in 2018 being one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to.
But her small-scale success as a niche artist was at odds with her dreams of becoming a major pop star and she eventually went all out with 2022’s Crash, which became her first No1 album.
She played a major tour and was riding high, but revealed she came away from it realising she had to dig down into what was authentically her — which led to 2024’s Brat.
Charli explained: “I’ve always been caught in this dichotomy of, ‘Am I a left-field underground artist, or am I supposed to be a pop star?’
“Crash was me kind of toying with the idea of, ‘No, I’m going to be a pop star,’ but also putting this protective layer of like, ‘but it’s a concept’.
“After that I really did just feel like, ‘This next one is for me. I’ve done the trying-to-be-commercial thing.’ I’m not doing that any more.”
It paid off.
Her diary-like album Brat sees her address everything from the death of her friend on So I, to her struggle over whether she should settle down and start a family on I Think About It All The Time.
There are also brash, in-your-face pop bangers, themes of drugs and partying, as well as more mellow numbers like the viral TikTok hit Apple about her “sticky” relationship with her parents.
The album has already won her three Grammys and inspired millions to have a “Brat summer”.
Asked about the aesthetic for that, she said you’d need “a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra.”
Brat ended up being named the 2024 Word of the Year by the Collins English Dictionary, which defined it as “characterised by a confident, independent and hedonistic attitude.”
US Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris changed her social media to Brat green, the colour of the album’s artwork, after Charli tweeted “Kamala IS brat,” which was reshared more than 56,000 times.
Charli then created a darker, clubbier remix album, packed with features from acts such as Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande, called Brat And It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat.
As well as praise for the music, she has been hailed as a marketing genius for her album cover which just features the word “brat” across a green background.
Speaking about it, she said: “Where the actual first idea of doing a text cover came from was to save money because I was like, this album is not going to appeal to a lot of people.
“Then everyone was like, ‘That’s the stupidest idea ever.’ Everyone.
“Brandon [Creed] my manager, my creative director Imogene [Strauss], all my friends, everyone, was like, ‘No, not the text cover.’
I’ve always had the power in my relationships, which was great to a point, but I’ve always needed to spar with someone
Charli XCX
“The shade of green, we really honed in on what that should be.
“We wanted to go for the one that the most people in my core group had the most adverse reaction to.
“Brandon was like, ‘This is really hard to look at’. And I was like, this is the green then. I knew it would generate this conversation.”
It was as she was making the album, she fell in love with her fiancé, The 1975 drummer George Daniel, who worked on several tracks.
They will marry in Italy later this year.
Charli explained: “Meeting George changed everything for me.
“I’ve always had the power in my relationships, which was great to a point, but I’ve always needed to spar with someone.
“We have such a mutual respect of each other’s work, and challenge each other.
“I feel a lot more grounded and calm being with him. Not to sound super sappy, but he inspires me daily.”
She may be turning away from music, but as a self-confessed “workaholic”, she has already shot six films, which will be out in the coming months.
In 2023 she shot a remake of the 1978 horror film Faces Of Death, opposite Barbie Ferreira, and last August she spent three weeks in Poland making an art movie called Erupcja.
In October, she filmed the erotic thriller I Want Your Sex with Olivia Wilde, followed by period fantasy 100 Nights Of Hero with Emma Corrin.
Charli with her fiancé, The 1975 drummer George Daniel[/caption]
The following month she worked on Sacrifice, loosely inspired by Joan of Arc, starring Anya Taylor-Joy in the lead role.
Plus she has recently been on set for The Gallerist — a dark comedy featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Natalie Portman, which finished filming last month.
On top of all that, she is co-executive producing the score for another film and working on original music for a Prime Video series Overcompensating.
Charli’s head-strong determination to do things her way will be evident tonight — as she will be one of the biggest stars at the Brit Awards who will not be performing.
Brits showrunner Damian Christian revealed this week that she had turned down the opportunity.
He said: “She’s had an amazing year, a super-busy year, and the word that came back to us was, ‘Thanks for the offer, but I’m going to go and enjoy the night with my friends and family’.
“Hopefully she wins some awards.”
There has never been a better time to stop and smell the roses.
Long-time fan Howell with Charli[/caption]
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