In many ways, Holly Humberstone is like any other mid-twenties girl living in London. She pulls on her giant, black leather boots one at a time in the morning, leaves the flat she shares with her sister and friend in New Cross and heads into the city to do her job. Except when she clocks off and puts her headphones in, she’s not listening to someone else. She’s listening to herself. “Nothing beats the feeling of being in the studio and coming out, getting on the Tube and playing the song I just made,” she says gleefully, sitting across from me in a dinky café in Hammersmith as the sound of the roundabout rages outside. It’s the type of place where the barista doubles as a DJ and nearly every customer orders a matcha — the daytime watering holes of young London.
Humberstone is no egotist. She’s thoughtful and self-effacing, with a wit that jumps out at just the right moments. I ask her if she ever feels embarrassed listening to herself in public places. “I do not give a shit,” she smiles, confident in her love of her work. The 27-year-old singer-songwriter transplanted herself from the Midlands (“It’s the sticks,” she declares of her hometown, Grantham) to London a few years ago and is only just finding her feet in the capital. So far, so relatable. But the reason it’s taken her so long to settle in the city is decidedly less so.
Humberstone has spent much of the past five years on tour, opening for the likes of Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Sam Fender and Girl in Red. She’s taken over as top billing this year, performing across Europe and North America as part of her Cruel World tour. Her latest album — which carries the same name — has transported Humberstone to new heights, landing her performances on late-night shows (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, SNL UK), a Coachella slot and a Top 10 spot in the UK albums chart. Her list of endorsements only continues to grow: Lana del Rey, Reneé Rapp and Gracie Abrams are all fans. In December, Humberstone will return to supporting duties for Abrams’ Los Angeles tour dates, another jewel in her infinity gauntlet of confessional pop girlies.
“I can’t believe I get to share her stage,” Humberstone says of this “full-circle moment”.
You would think performing to stadiums of up to 90,000 people (as was the case when she opened for Taylor Swift in 2024) who might not even know your name would be the scariest part of Humberstone’s career. She’s not so sure. “It’s less pressure to be a support act,” she says. “In a weird way… The pressure [as a headliner] comes down to ‘They’ve spent 30 quid on a ticket, they’ve made the journey.’” She comes back to her time supporting Rodrigo, joking about how she felt on stage: “At least they haven’t spent their money on crap — on me — and they get Olivia, who’s great.”
It’s the kind of quintessentially British self-deprecating humour you would never expect from the American megastars Humberstone has opened for, however humble they may seem (you can take a girl out of Grantham, etc). If anything, Humberstone found her brief proximity to superstardom rather funny. “It was a strange experience for me hanging out with Olivia because she’s wildly famous, and there’s a lot of paparazzi pictures where I’m like creeping in the background,” she laughs. “I’ve never experienced that before. It’s just interesting to get an insight, and it makes me have so much more respect for her.”
Humberstone returned to real life in 2025. After years of on-off touring, it was a welcome reprieve to experience some normalcy, going on nights out with her friends, spending time with her sisters (a self-described “pack animal”, Humberstone is one of four girls) and helping her parents move out of her childhood home. “I feel like this industry is so all-consuming and overwhelming, and you are constantly looking ahead at what’s left to achieve, where’s left to go, and your goalposts keep moving,” she says. “Writing this album was the first time that I actually had a chance to step away from being an artist — whatever that means — and try to figure out who I am as a person. I feel like I’m constantly having such an identity crisis of who I am outside of this music career that I adore.”
Humberstone’s recent introspection shines through on the diaristic Cruel World, which traverses long-distance relationships, earth-shattering break-ups and a wavering sense of self-worth. It is overwhelmingly romantic, full of nectarous love songs and declarations of yearning (“So kiss me like you f***ing mean it,” Humberstone begs on sing-along stand-out Red Chevy, an ode to her long-term boyfriend, whose speaking voice features at the end), but tinged with loneliness and a palpable sense of longing. To Love Somebody, a song written for Humberstone’s sister while she was in the heartbreak trenches, has quickly become a fan favourite for its universal lyrics, the pop girlie equivalent of Lord Alfred Tennyson’s In Memoriam AHH. “It all breaks down, it always does, it all works out, it always does,” she reminds her sister, her fans, herself.
As much as Humberstone seems head over heels in love on Cruel World, she’s open about the growing pains of being in a relationship in your twenties. “Maybe it never changes, I don’t know, but I barely know who I am, and it’s hard to love someone else while you’re learning it,” she says. “It’s everybody’s first time on earth and people are extremely vulnerable.” Relationships, she reckons, are a bit like nostalgia. “It’s an all-consuming emotion. It’s the highest highs and the lowest lows.”
Even more exposing is Humberstone’s lyricism on Beauty Pageant, inspired by early years in the music industry when she would compare herself to other women constantly. This way of thinking was fostered by an all-girls school education, which instilled an early sense of competitiveness. “That experience really taught me to think in a certain way and to view other women in a certain way, which is embarrassing to admit,” she says. “We were very much set against each other in all aspects of life. That really deeply informed how I was seeing my peers, and I think it’s taken a long time for that to not be something that I’m thinking about all the time, and just to realise that there is space for everybody to win.”
Like many young women, these thoughts often find a home in Humberstone’s notes app. Her songwriting process takes root there, often fragmented and disjointed, wrought over months or even years. “I was going through my notes before a podcast that I did a few months ago to try and find like the starts and seeds of the songs, and I found this note from ages ago that just had ‘Cruel World’ written in it. Or I found some lyrics from To Love Somebody about this blue and green ball that keeps spinning.”
Other times, it all spills out. “Make It All Better was so quick to write,” she says. “We made it in like a day. It just felt like a stream of consciousness, easy writing.” This is as rewarding as the long, arduous songs that take months, Humberstone insists. “If it doesn’t feel satisfying, then it’s not a good song,” she says. I’m intrigued about what people would say if her notes app were discovered upon her sudden death. “They’d be like: ‘She was tapped,’” she laughs.
With such a massive year underway, it would be natural to assume what Humberstone’s ultimate goal is. There are the classics, of course. Headlining Glastonbury, a No 1 album or a collaboration with a lifelong idol. But this isn’t the way Humberstone thinks. “I’ve stopped setting myself goals because I feel like it’s an unhealthy way of looking at your career. Maybe it works for some people, but I think for me setting goals adds pressure, and I don’t really perform very well under pressure,” she says.
“If I think back to my 11-year-old self, the absolute dream of getting to do this. I’d just be happy with this. I’ve way surpassed what I thought was possible, and I would like to enjoy this amazing gift of a career that I get to have.” Gratitude over Glastonbury, I guess. And you can’t really argue with that.
Cruel World is out now
Holly Humberstone’s top tracks
At Least You Got to Love Somebody
Spectral countrified ballad from her latest EP reworking songs from Cruel World.
Red Chevy
Springsteen meets Sabrina in this car-based lust banger.
Scarlett
First album brilliance, sounds like The Cars — yes, that good.
