Tate McRae’s meteoric rise to fame began in 2017 when she started uploading videos of her original songs to YouTube.
“I’d always been a big fan of writing poetry and stories, and then one day I locked myself in my room and wrote a song and it kind of went viral overnight,” McRae said during a June 2022 appearance on Lorraine.
The first original song from McRae’s “Create With Tate” YouTube series — titled “One Day” — garnered 40 million views. She was 14 when she wrote it.
After the success of “One Day,” McRae continued to build a sizable following on YouTube and TikTok. She signed with RCA Records in August 2019 and has since released two EP’s (2020’s All the Things I Never Said and 2021’s Too Young to Be Sad) and two studio albums (2022’s I Used to Think I Could Fly and 2023’s Think Later).
Keep scrolling for everything you need to know about McRae:
1. She Was on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’
Before making her mark as a singer, McRae was known for a successful stint on the reality competition show So You Think You Can Dance, which featured dancers between the ages of 8 and 13 on its 13th season. At 12 years old, she became the first Canadian finalist in the show’s history.
“I started dancing around the age of 6,” McRae told Everly Mag in March 2018. “It began as a hobby that I was definitely not seriously interested in. I loved performing, but hated when I actually had to do what I was told. I only started getting serious when my mom took me to New York at age 8.”
2. She Has a Song Written by Billie Eilish
The lead single for McRae’s debut EP, titled “Tear Myself Apart,” was written by brother-sister songwriting duo Eilish and Finneas O’Connell.
“I’m a huge fan of both of them,” McRae said of Eilish and O’Connell during a December 2020 interview with Harper’s Bazaar. “I got to meet Billie and Finneas at a show in L.A. and we talked about it. It was a really cool experience overall.”
Despite her admiration for Eilish, McRae said during a May 2022 interview with The Music magazine that she finds it “a little lazy” when people compare them to each other.
“There’s so many new female artists right now that are coming into the industry, so, like, obviously there’s gonna be similarities,” McRae said. “I mean, [Billie’s] so inspiring and she’s so incredible, but I do think our music is wildly different.”
3. She’s In an Olivia Rodrigo Music Video
McRae is featured in the music video for Rodrigo’s 2023 single “Bad Idea Right?” She can be seen getting ready in a bathroom mirror and lip-synching to Rodrigo’s backing vocals along with Iris Apatow and Rodrigo’s former Bizaardvark costar Madison Hu.
“[Olivia] just texted me and she’s like, ‘Oh, do you want to do a music video, like, tomorrow?’ And I was like, ‘Sure!’” McRae recalled during a September 2023 SiriusXM interview. She also sang Rodrigo’s praises during a December 2023 interview with Elite Daily.
“I adore Olivia,” she said. “She’s one of my closest friends in L.A., and I think she is one of the most talented people I’ve ever met. We have a lot of fun.”
4. She Dated Hockey Player Cole Sillinger
McRae and the NHL athlete went Instagram official in August 2022 when McRae posted photos of them on vacation together. Before the pair started dating, Sillinger admitted in an interview that McRae was his celebrity crush.
“I was like, ‘I can forever hold this to you until the day you die, that I was your celebrity crush,” McRae joked to Entertainment Tonight in August 2022. “He’s one of my brother’s friend’s friend’s, so, it all, like, worked out.”
While the duo never addressed their split, McRae said that she is “single at the moment” during a September 2023 appearance on SiriusXM.
Some fans think that the September 2023 music video for McRae’s song “Greedy” is inspired by her ex, as it takes place at an ice rink. McRae wears a hockey uniform and drives a Zamboni in the video.
“So sure of yourself, baby don’t get greedy / that s—t won’t end well,” she sings on the track.
The “Exes” musician also donned hockey pads on the album cover of Think Later, for which “Greedy” is a single.
5. Her Sophomore Album Is About Living in the Moment
The title for McRae’s second album, Think Later — which was released in December 2023 — came from a quote.
“[The quote is]: ‘Live now, think later; dance now, think later; sing now, think later,’” McRae said during a December 2023 interview with Elite Daily. “The idea of being super present in life and living with your intuition in your heart rather than your head.”
She continued: “I’ve been a pretty big overthinker and perfectionist my whole life. In the last year and a half, I’ve made a lot of decisions and gone through a lot of experiences without thinking as much, which resulted in me falling harder in love and feeling things way more intensely, but then also making completely different decisions than I ever would.”
