Debbii Dawson Is Not Your Average Pop Princess

“My mom says I was normal when I was born,” Debbii Dawson says as she doodles a smiley face on a piece of paper in Elite Daily’s offices after her photo shoot. Her ebony hair cascades past her shoulder, piling softly against the dark gray pinstripe blazer dress she’s wearing buttoned to the top with jeweled barrettes splayed delicately along the collar. Her signature eye makeup — a CoverGirl black liner with a simple black eyeshadow — and a magenta lippie add to the ethereal ’70s look she’s perfected over the years.

She’s talking about her viral Are You Okay? interview, which has garnered more than 6.5 million views on TikTok. In the video, the 29-year-old singer-songwriter, sporting a coat adorned with plushies, recounts a childhood story about playing in the cemetery and offers the host “nonprescription” jelly beans that she keeps in an unlabeled prescription bottle. Now the third most popular post on the series’ page, the interview dubbed Dawson the Internet’s favorite Weird Girl.

“That’s so nice,” the singer says of the label as she puts the finishing touches on the cup of coffee she’s drawn. She speaks in a tone that makes it difficult to tell whether or not she’s joking, but the slight inflection at the end of her sentence makes me think it’s a title the rising pop princess is more than happy to accept.

From YouTube chronicles that echo Nathan Fielder skits to running an entire Instagram account dedicated to Fernando, a mannequin head she found in the Arts District of Los Angeles, Dawson might appear as an eccentric, but the truth is: She’s just being herself.

That project was trying to understand myself and the world around me, my place in it, which is what I’m currently doing right now.

Still, growing up in Minnesota as a first-generation Indian American, she admits that trying to conform to other people’s expectations was isolating. “We all struggle with identity, so that’s something that you’re reminded of every day,” Dawson says of living in a state of 5.7 million where fewer than 50,000 people share her cultural identity. “I’m just trying to find my place as a normal human girl.”

Since she was born into a musical family, her education is lifelong and expansive. Her parents hit pause on their band’s tour to have her. “We were living in a garage at that time, and my mom had me, and then two weeks later, we were back on the road,” she says.

As a kid, she wore out both a Celine Dion album and a Whitney Houston CD, and she still looks to her idols for inspiration, blending nostalgia with her own warmth and eccentricity. Pulsing synth is a must, as is the use of a keytar (a guitar with a keyboard on it instead of strings), and a good melody. (“I love melody. Melody is like cocaine for me.”) Even though she’d always loved music, it took Dawson years to be brave enough to sing in front of others. (“I kept it a secret.”)

A self-described extreme introvert who often deals with panic attacks, Dawson says her music career started as a form of exposure therapy in her teen years. After a bout of deep depression, she knew something needed to change, especially if she wanted to pursue a career on stage. In an effort to combat her anxiety, she forced herself to get a job singing at a restaurant and eventually auditioned for America’s Got Talent “just to rip the Band-Aid off.”

Appearing on Season 17 in 2022, Dawson became an instant favorite with her acoustic rendition of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.” (She continues to include odes to the Swedish “melody masters” throughout her music all these years later.) Dawson would eventually make it to the quarterfinals before being eliminated. In 2023, she released her first official EP, Learning, and in 2024, she dropped another titled How to Be Human. “That project was trying to understand myself and the world around me, my place in it, which is what I’m currently doing right now too,” she says.

For Dawson, being human means being connected to the people around her — and as an introvert, that’s sometimes easier said than done. “When I moved to L.A. from Minnesota, people would tell me I needed to be making urban music, and it was confusing for me to have people tell me what to do or how to sound,” Dawson says. “Accepting myself was really crucial in discovering who I wanted to be.”

[Role Model’s] fans were really wild. I tell people it feels like underage bachelorette parties.

Almost four years after appearing in front of the AGT judges, Dawson has turned her childhood passions into a reality only a few can dream of. 2025 has brought Dawson even more success, including being named one of Spotify’s “"Artists to Watch.” She released three singles — “Chemical Reaction,” “You Killed The Music,” and “Gut Feelings” — and is actively working on new music. Not only does she have nearly half a million monthly listeners on Spotify, but this year alone, she’s gone on tour with both Role Model and The Beaches (for the second time), performing in front of hundreds of thousands of people.

“His fans were really wild. I tell people it feels like underage bachelorette parties,” she says of the two-monthlong Role Model tour. “Fans would be waiting outside his bus to talk to him, and I felt bad, so I would give them things from my pocket; straws, ketchup packets.” She says this like a true Pisces, who is chronically overwhelmed by emotions. This might sound like a bad thing, but for Dawson, it’s a superpower that allows her to tap into the deepest parts of her soul and produce heartfelt songs like “Eulogy for Nobody,” and “You Killed the Music.”

Dawson cites musical masters like Queen, Hans Zimmer, and Muse as artists who inspire her to have fun with the songs that live inside her head. She admits that she once wrote a musical with Muse songs set during the Russian Revolution and that she’ll never reveal her dream musical collaborator because the day after she wrote the list, one of the artists died. “I can’t tell you in order to protect the rest of the people on the list.”

Words are powerful. As a writer, it’s something that I really keep in mind. I try my best not to put super negative things in my songs.

What she will reveal, however, is that her next album is about shedding her reclusive shell and embracing new experiences — something Dawson has made an effort to do since committing to a very public career. In September, she walked the runway during New York Fashion Week in Rachel Antonoff’s and Susan Alexandra’s shows alongside stars like Dylan O’Brien and dozens of adoptable shelter dogs. (Don’t worry, she absolutely did rub lunch meat on her body beforehand so the pups on stage would like her better — something she picked up on tour with Role Model when puppies were brought in to promote adoption). Most recently, she ran into a clown posse in the middle of a bar in Brooklyn, on a weekday no less.

“When we go out, we pretend we’re in the circus instead of a band for safety reasons,” Dawson says of the unique situation. “So, we decided to talk to the clowns and follow them into a back room when a woman comes up and starts talking about cannibalism.” While that interaction may be enough to send others running straight back to the tour bus, Dawson ended up taking photos with the red-nosed group. She wasn’t afraid of potentially being consumed by cannibal clowns because, as she explains in a deadpan voice, her hair is so long, it wouldn’t be appetizing.

Having lived to tell the tale, Dawson recently wrapped her last tour of 2025 and is back in L.A., manifesting that she finishes her album. “Words are powerful,” she says. “As a writer, it’s something that I really keep in mind. I try my best not to put super negative things in my songs. I want to make sure that I'm saying good things, and then people who listen to my music are also getting good out of it.”

Lately, Dawson’s latest musical era is more playful and colorful than her earlier work — and she mentions she’s been listening to music from other countries. “Music is such a magical thing that you don’t need to speak the same language,” she says. Dawson’s currently loving city pop, which is a Japanese music genre led by artists like Miki Matsubara and Taeko Onuki. “I don’t need to know what you’re saying to know what you’re feeling.”

When she’s not hard at work bringing fans new music, she’s rooting for the pop Avengers (Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Taylor Swift, and Olivia Rodrigo) and taking time for some much-needed self-care, which includes curling up in bed next to Frank Ocean, her preserved baby shark, and watching TV. For now, she leaves fans and aspiring artists with this reminder: “Don’t let people tell you who you are.”