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April 9, 2025 85 mins

Back on the sofa for the first time since 2019 — this time without her trenchcoat — Grace WanderWaal joins us for a refreshingly frank conversation about her experiences in the entertainment industry. Now 21, VanderWaal won America’s Got Talent when she was just an improbably precocious, ukulele-toting 12-year-old. She discusses that experience, candidly sharing her feelings as she navigated childhood to early adulthood in the spotlight.


VanderWaal also unpicks the themes in her new album CHILDSTAR, sharing her thoughts on destructive archetypes and oppressive expectations — she’s rewriting her narrative as a newly independent artist, collaborating with the likes of Aliyah’s Interlude, getting playful with alter egos, and channeling the unflinching honesty of artists such as Fiona Apple. She also discusses her thoughts on acting, what it was like working with Francis Ford Coppola in Megalopolis (for which she also contributed two original songs), plus heartbreak, bad tattoos, moving through familial and childhood trauma, her disdain for black and white interpretations in areas that are clearly gray, and so much more.


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