Madison Elle Beer (born March 5, 1999) is a Jewish-American singer-songwriter. Born in New York, she began posting covers to YouTube in early 2012. Beer gained substantial media coverage when Justin Bieber posted a link to one of her covers. She released her debut single, "Melodies", in 2013
In 2018, Beer released her debut EP, As She Pleases. The project was supported by the singles "Dead" and "Home With You", both of which were certified Gold by the RIAA. The following year, Beer signed with Epic Records, later releasing her debut studio album, Life Support in 2021. The album was supported by several singles, including "Selfish", which gained traction on the media sharing app TikTok.
Aside from her solo work, Beer has voiced the virtual character Evelynn in the League of Legends virtual band K/DA. As a member of the group she has released the internationally charting singles "Pop/Stars" (2018) and "More" (2020). She has also appeared on television series such as Todrick (2015) and RuPaul's Drag Race (2020), and in the film Louder Than Words (2013).
Early life
Madison Elle Beer was born on March 5, 1999 in Jericho, Long Island, New York. Her father, Robert Beer, is a real estate developer, and her mother Tracie, was an interior designer, but put that aside to help navigate Madison's career. Beer appeared on the cover of Child Magazine after winning a modeling competition at 4 years old. Her parents divorced when she was younger. Beer has a younger brother named Ryder, Beer's family is Jewish, and she celebrated her bat mitzvah in 2012.
Early in Beer's life, she was consistently in the public's eye. This contributed to her mental health issues, and she recalled constantly being scrutinized for her mistakes, "My platform felt more like a chopping block a lot of the time and it felt like people were waiting for me to fail — hoping I would fail more than they wanted me to succeed, which hurt a lot." adding, "Why do you want me to fail so bad? I'm at a better place with it, but I definitely think growing up as a teenager is tough to begin with, and being on social media just makes it worse."
2012–2016: Career beginnings
Beer began posting videos on YouTube of her singing covers of popular songs in early 2012. They gained the attention of Justin Bieber, who tweeted a link to her cover of Etta James's "At Last" to his followers. This caused Beer to trend worldwide on Twitter and gain substantial media coverage. Bieber signed Beer personally to the record label to which he is signed, Island Records, and at the time she was managed by Bieber's manager Scooter Braun.
Beer partnered with Monster High, and recorded a theme song for the franchise titled "We Are Monster High". In February 2013, Cody Simpson re-released his song "Valentine" with Beer, which was played on Radio Disney, but was never officially released. On September 12, 2013, Beer released her debut single and music video called "Melodies" which was written by Peter Kelleher, Ben Kohn, Thomas Barnes and Ina Wroldsen. The video featured a guest appearance by Bieber.
Beer began work on her debut album which was slated to have pop and R&B influences, stating there "will be slow songs, sad songs, happy songs, songs about boys, and songs about being who you are. I'm making sure I'm happy with all of the songs, because if I am not happy with them, I can't expect anyone else to be, you know?" The album is believed to have been scrapped.
"Unbreakable" was the second single released by Beer. The song was released on June 17, 2014, and was written by Jessica Ashley, Evan Bogart, Heather Jeanette Miley, Matt Schwartz, Emanuel Kiriakou and Andrew Goldstein and was produced by the latter two. On February 16, 2015, it was announced that Beer was set to be a featured artist in a new single by DJs Mako titled "I Won't Let You Walk Away". The song was released for digital download on February 24, 2015, along with a music video. The song reached number 43 on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, number 33 on the Dance/Electronic Digital Songs, and number 19 on the Dance/Mix Show Airplay charts in the United States. On September 24, 2015, Beer released "All For Love" featuring American duo Jack & Jack.
2017–2018: As She Pleases
Beer recorded her EP, titled As She Pleases, over a three-year period. It was released on February 2, 2018. The same month, she walked the runway for Dolce & Gabbana Fall 2017 show at Milan Fashion Week. "Dead" was released as the lead single from the EP on May 19, 2017. The music video was later released on August 3, 2017. Beer then released "Say It To My Face" as the second single from the EP on November 3, 2017. The music video was released on November 15, 2017.
On March 10, 2018, "Home With You" was released as the third and final single from the EP. In August 2018, the song peaked at number 21 on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart, making her the only female solo artist on the charts without a major music label. She made her official festival debut at Lollapalooza on August 2, 2018, in Chicago. Beer was featured on "Blame It On Love", a song from French DJ David Guetta seventh studio album 7. The video game developer Riot Games released a song and music video for "Pop/Stars" on November 3, 2018. This song is performed by Beer, Miyeon, and Soyeon from (G)I-DLE and Jaira Burns under a virtual K-pop group named K/DA. This song was used as a theme song for the online game League of Legends towards the end of 2018. On November 9, 2018, Beer released "Hurts Like Hell" featuring American rapper Offset.
2019–2021: Life Support
Beer was featured on "All Day and Night" by DJs Jax Jones and Martin Solveig under their alias Europa. This song was released on March 28, 2019. On May 17, 2019, Beer released the single "Dear Society". The single was initially meant to be included on the track list of her debut album, but was ultimately removed from the final track listing. On August 9, 2019, Beer announced on her Instagram account that she had signed with Epic Records.
In January 2020, she released "Good In Goodbye" as the lead single from her upcoming studio album, Life Support. This was followed by its second single "Selfish" and promotional single "Stained Glass". The former would later be certified Gold by the RIAA in the United States. She released the third single from the album, "Baby", on August 21, 2020 alongside the music video.In September 2020, cosmetics brand Morphe launched a collection with Beer called Morphe x Madison Beer. On October, she reprised her role in K/DA as Evelynn and was featured on two tracks for the EP All Out: "More" along with the original lineup and Lexie Liu, and also "Villain" which also features German singer Kim Petras. Fourth single, "BOYSHIT", was released in December 2020. Alongside the song's release, she announced the release date for the album. Beer was announced as Vevo's new LIFT artist in December 2020. In support of the campaign, live performances for previous singles "Selfish" and "Boyshit" were released that same month. A short film for the campaign titled Dreams Look Different in the Distance was released in January 2021.
Life Support was released on February 26, 2021. The album received generally favorable critic reviews with Dani Blum of Pitchforkcalling it "ambitious yet shallow, seemingly intent on proving its own seriousness". NME's Hannah Mylrea was more favorable and gave it 4/5 stars. Riff Magazine's Mike DeWald gave the album a 8/10, saying "It may have been years in the making, but Madison Beer’s first album is worth the wait for pop fans." User-input reviews are also positive with a 97% of 100% rating from Google Users.
2021–present: Silence Between Songs
Beer has confirmed on an interview with the Zach Sang Show that she is working on a second album and 7 songs are currently written for it, saying "We have seven songs on the second album already, and we had four days of a writing camp." During the show, she also said that she would be aiming to do two albums in one year (Life Support and her upcoming album) and was planning to release her upcoming album by the end of 2021. "Reckless", the lead single from the album, was released on June 4th, 2021. On an Instagram livestream the morning after the release of Reckless, Madison said that she was having a writing camp at her house in New York. Later on July 22, 2022 Madison released the single "I Have Never Felt More Alive" which is part of the soundtrack for the movie Fall. One month later, on August 26, 2022 she released the second single for her album Silence Between Songs which was called "Dangerous". On October 14, 2022 the third single for the album "Showed Me" which interpolates "You Showed Me" by The Turtles. During the delay for her sophomore album she was unsure if "Reckless" was part of the album. Later she returned with the fourth single "Home To Another One" which was released on June 2, 2023. She then announced her second album Silence Between Songs, set to be released on September 15, 2023.
Personal life
Beer has stated in a March 2020 TikTok Livestream that she is bisexual and came out around 2016–2017, saying "'Are you bi[sexual]?' Yeah, I came out like, 4, 3 years ago I'd say. People always ask me that, and I'm like I've answered this question so many times. It's kinda weird." adding, "I am bi[sexual], always have been, it's nothing new." She's also previously stated that she has been in love with a woman.
Beer was in a relationship with Jack Gilinsky, a member of Jack & Jack (of whom she's collaborated with) in 2015 to 2017. She also had a short relationship with Brooklyn Beckham after her breakup with Gilinsky, attributing to her short relationship being due to distance constrictions, "I can't do long distance". Afterwards, in late 2017, she dated Zack Bia on and off until early 2019.
Madison was rumored to be dating tiktoker Nick Austin in August 2020, and the two went public with their relationship in March 2021.
Beer has struggled with mental health issues throughout her life, with herself saying that social media and the Internet had contributed to her issues, writing the song Dear Society about the issues society causes her. She had previously tried to harm herself, and was diagnosed with Borderline personality disorder.
Beer also has stated that her inspirations in her music and songwriting are Lana Del Rey, Daft Punk, Melanie Martinez and Ariana Grande. When questioned if she was inspired by Grande, a largely debated question on the internet, Beer responded "I mean, you know Ariana [Grande]'s been one of my favorite people ever for like, so much of my career and like, even just prior to my career, so I'm sure she's definitely influenced me, a lot." adding later, "But, I hate this narrative that's being pushed about me and her [Ariana Grande], you know, that it's kinda like this competition thing, like this is someone I idolize and someone I lookup to."
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