Freya Skye was five years old when a karaoke machine appeared under the Christmas tree, and she has been singing ever since. At 13, she represented the UK at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. By now, at 16, she has amassed over 2.5 billion streams and sold out more than a hundred shows worldwide. She also released a debut EP in February called Stardust that charted in both the US and UK. “I don’t really believe in coincidences,” she says of that first karaoke machine. “Music has always had a way of finding me or maybe I’ve always had a way of finding it.” Skye created Stardust with some of pop’s most in-demand names — like songwriter Julia Michaels and Grammy-winning producers Mattman and Robin, known for their work with Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift — but the songs are unmistakably hers. “Each song is a piece of who I was when I wrote it,” she says. “They’re messy, honest, and a little bit broken on their own but together they tell the full story.” Lead single “silent treatment,” about being ghosted without explanation, has clocked over 100M streams across all DSPs.”It’s not a hyper-specific story, it’s a specific feeling,” she says. “Everyone has been on one side of that silence or the other.”

Writing with Michaels left a mark that went beyond the songs. “She’s so calm and grounded, genuinely kind to write with, and within ten minutes she knew everything about me because I’m an open book like that,” Skye says. “When someone that secure in themselves is sitting across from you, you end up writing braver.” Her shows have grown from 200-capacity rooms to 7,000-seat venues in under a year, and she has fought hard to keep them accessible — partnering with Ticketmaster to ensure her tour tickets can only be resold at face value. “Keeping tickets as affordable as possible is so important, especially with my fanbase where we’re all teenagers and young girls,” she says. “You never want to close people out.” The devotion goes both ways. “They’ve been queuing since seven that morning, dressed up, giving everything they have. I’m just giving it back to them.”

Freya Skye’s latest single ‘Bad Taste’ arrived September 16 and is now available to stream across all platforms as she continues work on her debut album. Her film Zombies 5: Secrets of the Sea, in which she plays Nova, is now in production. Her world is only getting bigger, fashion included. In July, Hollister named her the face of its fall “Made for This Moment” denim campaign, a partnership that will also see the brand sponsor her upcoming tour dates across North America, the UK and Europe. She wears it all lightly: the Oscar de la Renta gown she wore at the Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires premiere made her feel “like a completely different, more grown-up version of myself for a night,” she says, though at home she’s happiest in “the comfiest thing I own, some huge hoodie.” Wherever it all goes next, Skye says, she’s ready for it, because her passion remains: “Music is the part of me I can never turn off.”

This cover story appears in the pages of V162: now available for purchase!

Photography Gabriel Perez Silva

Fashion Gorge Villalpando

Makeup Leah Darcy (A-Frame Agency) using YSL Beauty

Hair Virginie Pineda (The Visionaries) using GHD Hair & K18

Casting Kev Ponce

Fashion Market Editor Gabby Buchan

Production Cynthia Hadden (Lyric Productions)

Photo Assistants Leila Keftaro & Victor-Gabriel Hofer

Styling Assistants Juan Vega & Sophie Saunders

Makeup Assistant Reina Zuniga

Location Smashbox Studios