Kacy Hill thanks God she’s not more famous

Kacy Hill isn’t one to court the spotlight but in the past few months, she can’t seem to escape it. In April and June, her name swirled in headlines as she caught the ire of Travis Scott fans and details of a past breakup with her ex turned into drama fodder for the rollout of Lorde’s new album Virgin. When I bring these things up in a recent video call in June, she can’t help but give a knowing smile and let out an exasperated laugh.

In all other arenas, the 31-year-old Hill fields a life of minding her own business and protecting her peace. Currently reclined in the light-filled and wood-panneled living room of her Los Angeles home, to which she moved in 2024 following that breakup, she spends her days playing the guitar and tending to her garden. After our call, she’ll leave the house to run her sole errand of the day, getting her hair done. “Whenever I say that, [I] feel, like, so indulgent,” she laughs. “I swear I have a job.”

Over the past two decades, Hill’s so-called “job” has changed several times in the public eye. She rose to fame in the mid-2010s as a Tumblr-favorite American Apparel model, and was later briefly signed to Ye (né Kanye West)’s G.O.O.D. Music, where she released her debut album and completed a fateful (more on that later) collaboration, “90210,” with Travis Scott. But these days, that past feels worlds away. “I don’t really relate much to that time in my life anymore,” she has said online. Hill left the label in 2019 and has since more or less been moving as an indie singer making delicate, experimental pop. In 2024, she released Bug, a quiet and gorgeous album of slowed-down folk and pedal steel. On August 27, she’ll follow that up with But Anyway, No Worries!, a new EP that shows a further evolution of her sound broaching country and Americana, her most singer-songwriter effort to date.

“The biggest change I’ve felt in my 30s versus my 20s has been letting go of the obsession of being cool and being validated by some group of people. The moments where I feel most myself and most peaceful and happy are the moments where I’m present and not looking around,” she says of her current psyche, while also addressing her recent viral moments, and the toxicity of fame and celebrity.

The FADER: This new EP is coming pretty soon after Bug. What’s changed in your writing process?

Kacy Hill: This year has flown by in the most bizarre way. In the past when I would make a project, I felt like I had to finish the project first and get it out and then I could start on something new. Whereas since last year, I’ve just been writing music really prolifically. I think part of that has been writing on piano and guitar more on my own, and I’ve really been enjoying writing on my own. I just had a lot to say.

I think that when I write more frequently, I’m less precious about everything needing to be good and it’s more so just like, let me get this out. I’m just gonna pick up the guitar or sit at the piano and start playing things and I find sometimes there’s less judgment in myself because it feels childlike to make music in that way. I have no idea what chord I’m making, but I’m just gonna find shapes that sound good to my ears.

There’s a lot of guitar on Bug, but the music here sounds much more organic, country-ish, folk-y. Was that just a symptom of you playing and writing more on guitar and piano?

Country and folk and Americana songwriting has always been my North Star. I’ve said this before: If you want to be a good songwriter, you need to listen to country music and folk music. The storytelling is so great and poignant, and so great at specificity and finding universal themes within that.

I was getting out of a really long relationship and, I don’t know, I think finding yourself again and dealing with heartbreak will definitely make you write country music [laughs]. This project is very much, OK, let me go full into this folk Americana space, and then [the album] after will be like, cool, these are all piano guitar songs, but how can I lean into that folk Americana but still bring more of the experimental pop stuff.

When we last talked around Bug, you told me a lot about your garden, tending to your tomatoes and using the produce to make dinner with your friends. You sing about that garden in a much more symbolic way on your song “The Garden.” What was it like to write about it?

I was raw. I was a month out of [my last relationship] and I had moved out of my house that I lived in like 3 weeks prior. I was really mourning that. Quite frankly, I think having a garden and growing things was this genuine spiritual awakening where I found purpose in my life and found a connection to some sort of higher power through watching things grow and feeding myself from that, and to lose that, it was so heartbreaking to me.

It was such a metaphor for the relationship as a whole. I grew all this food and tended to this and went out and watered it every day and how did I not see, or care, that the person that I was with, that I shared a home with, not that they didn’t even remotely feel the same, but they never even went out there and looked at it with me, you know? That was one of the biggest things that I had to wrestle with. Why did I stay for so long?

I’d like to pivot and talk about what’s been happening on the internet with you. A couple months ago, you went viral and caught the ire of some Travis Scott fans because you commented on TikTok asking them to stop asking you about “90210” and the follow-up collab with the rapper that never happened. I’m curious, because that song came out like ten years ago, why did you choose to address this now?

Essentially, for, what is it now? 10 years? I have to mute so many words on my TikTok and Instagram, and people still find ways to [contact] me. If I don’t mute those words, almost all of my comments will be “90210” or “Travis Scott” or “Travis Scott girl,” and it ranges to misogynistic comments like, “Oh, you must have slept with X person” or whatever to get that feature.” The issue with it is then, these platforms only push my videos to Travis Scott fans. So I misguidedly just didn’t know how to be like, “Guys, this man ghosted me years ago, but this feature is not gonna happen.”

In my misguided [attempt to] say, “Can we move forward?” it explodes and turns into [fans] being like, “You don’t appreciate him, you’re so unappreciative.” That’s not what I said. I’ve only said good things about the song. I’m super grateful for it. And have I made money off of it? Barely. So little money. So for me to spend the last 10 years on the internet having people tell me, “Your music isn’t shit,” or “you only have a career because of Travis Scott, you must have fucked Travis Scott to get that,” at some point you have to have a voice in it and be like “No. Move on.” You can only be silent for so long.

Besides muting words, how do you handle needing to be online and on TikTok as part of your job as an artist, but also that toxic underbelly?

I have pretty thick skin and I think you kind of have to, to be online. I usually delete TikTok and Instagram from my phone during the day and I’ll re-download it to post something and respond to a few things. I do love the connection that I find with people, but when I get caught in these parasocial fan bases that are not even my own, I start to feel really scared.

When people look to celebrities for guidance and higher power, it creates a parasocial relationship where they defend celebrities like people would defend God. Everyone seeks guidance or seeks something that’s bigger than themselves, but when the only things you find for that are celebrities, it is really scary.

Speaking of other fan bases, do you regret making your other TikTok that went viral among Lorde fans?

I didn’t realize [my TikTok about my ex] was gonna blow up in the way it did. I thought it was funny. Of course, [“Man of the Year”] was pushed onto my algorithm for so long, and I just thought [my TikTok] was funny and I sent it to my friends and they were like, “Oh my God, you have to post that.”

People got so upset with me, and I didn’t say anything beyond what exactly happened to me. I didn’t blame anyone for anything. And no, I don’t regret [posting it]. I’m allowed to have a voice about what happens to me in my life and if people don’t like that, I’m sorry, but also you’re not the one that happened to. Why are you upset?

What would you like to see change in how people engage with celebrities and the culture of celebrity in general?

I don’t know how we can change it fundamentally because I feel like we’re so far down this rabbit hole. Societally, we look at fame and celebrity as being the best thing you can be, when in fact, fame is, like, a horrible affliction. It’s very revealing [that] a lot of the comments I get are like, “You’re never gonna be as successful as them, you’re never gonna be as famous.” And fucking thank God. That’s never been what I’m striving for.

When I first got my first record deal with G.O.O.D. Music, I lost sleep. I had nightmares about being stuck in this cycle of people knowing who I was. There’s been so many times I’ve sabotaged my own career, because I would see it inching to a place where I was just like, “No, I can’t do that.” When my first album came out, I was supposed to go on Facebook Live to talk to fans about the album and I had a panic attack. [Fame’s] a really scary thing because it’s fleeting and then you’re always chasing this thing.

Celebrities are not your gods. They don’t know who you are. You are another face in the crowd, you are another ticket, you’re another sale. I’m sure they care about people — I know they do — but at the end of the day, they’re selling a product. It’s like you’re worshipping Zara, except Zara is a person.