Who Is Audrey Hobert? TikTok’s New Favorite Pop Singer Is Being Called “Cringe” on X

She didn’t care about looking good and made faces. Hobert danced awkwardly. She committed to every strange little mannerism without pausing to make herself look more aesthetic for the camera. TikTok loved it because they felt she was authentic. On X, people began calling her “cringe.” That pretty much sums up the energy of both platforms. Anyway, the reaction quickly became much uglier than complaints about her lyrics or dancing on X. Some users mocked Hobert’s appearance, called her “ugly,” and even began speculating that she was transgender. Hobert was born a woman, and the trans rumor appears to be based entirely on the fact that she does not resemble the polished, hyper-feminine pop singer people expect to see onstage. Hobert felt like she came out of nowhere. What we know is that, before becoming a singer, the 27-year-old studied screenwriting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and worked in television. She was a staff writer on Nickelodeon’s The Really Loud House , then became better known for writing music with her childhood best friend, Gracie Abrams. Hobert helped write several songs from Abrams’ 2024 album The Secret of Us , including “Risk,” “I Love You, I’m Sorry,” and “That’s So True.” She also directed the music videos for “Risk” and “I Love You, I’m Sorry,” making her more creatively involved in Abrams’ success than the typical behind-the-scenes songwriter. She eventually began writing for herself and released “Sue Me” in May 2025. Her debut album, Who’s the Clown? , followed that August. The album initially attracted a devoted online audience, although “Sue Me” received a second burst of attention in 2026 and climbed into the UK Top 40. This month, Hobert made her Tiny Desk debut, which introduced her to a much larger group of people who apparently had very strong feelings about the way a female singer should behave. Hobert’s music is fast, wordy, self-conscious, and intentionally embarrassing. She writes about romantic desperation, jealousy, loneliness, and acne. This rawness is precisely why so many people either hate her or love her. The industry normally only allows beautiful singers to rise to the top. Hobert is willing to occupy a less flattering position, one where she isn’t aspirational. Sometimes the joke is on her, but she knows it. Her album is called Who’s the Clown? for a reason. I, personally, believe this is also why she irritates people so much. Hobert does not perform awkwardness in the cute, carefully restrained way. She makes weird expressions, throws her limbs around, exaggerates her movements in music videos, and fully allows herself to look ridiculous. Nobody is required to enjoy Hobert’s hyper-specific lyrics, theatrical dancing, or aggressive sincerity. Some people will find the performance grating because it is designed to provoke a physical reaction. The cringe is part of the act. TikTok probably loves it because they want something new and are enamored by novelty. X, on the other hand, wants to remain traditional and is more hypercritical. Still, there is an obvious line between saying, “This performance annoys me,” and conducting an unsolicited inspection of a woman’s face and body. Speculating that she was born a man just because she doesn’t look “feminine” is unnecessary. Once the conversation shifts from her work to whether she looks feminine enough to be a woman at all, it is no longer an honest music review. Hobert seems fully aware that she is rejecting the standard pop-star presentation. While discussing the unsettling cover of Who’s the Clown? , which shows her transformed with clown prosthetics, she explained why she did not want to pose like a conventionally glamorous new singer. “I didn’t think there’d be anything interesting about me, posing semi-sexually and looking really good,” she told RUSSH . “I just think that there’s a lot of that out there, and we don’t need more of that.” Is Hobert a Nepo Baby? The inevitable “industry plant” accusations are a little more complicated. If you sought a simple yes or no answer to the question, personally, I’d say yes, Hobert is a nepo baby. Hobert’s father, Tim Hobert, is an established television writer and producer whose credits include Scrubs , Community , and The Middle . Her younger brother, Malcolm Todd, is also a successful musician. Her longtime friendship with Abrams gave her an unusually direct entrance into professional songwriting, so pretending she entered the industry without connections would be dishonest. Her connections do not cancel out her work, although we cannot ignore that nepo babies are given opportunities and industry access that the average person would never have. However, saying she's successful due to her connections would dismiss her talents and creations as a woman. Hobert wrote for television before releasing music, co-wrote major songs, directs her own videos, and reportedly writes her solo material herself. Even people who find her annoying should be able to admit that her creative involvement is unusually extensive for a new pop singer. I, personally, believe Hobert is talented and cringe. Those two things can exist together. In her case, they might be inseparable. Modern singers are too afraid to show who they are. I’ve found that pop singers who embrace being a little weird usually benefit from it, with Addison Rae’s career being an obvious example . Hobert appears to understand that lesson. She arrived at Tiny Desk flailing around with no apparent fear of looking foolish, and I quite liked her for it. People are free to hate the dancing, skip the album, or mute “Sue Me” whenever it appears on TikTok. Hobert will probably survive being called cringe because she has built her entire career around beating everyone else to the joke.