Even self-proclaimed Stage Girls aren’t immune to a little stage fright — just ask Eli. When we meet, the 25-year-old singer had just played an electric set at Le Poisson Rouge the night before. From a bystander’s perspective, Eli seemed right at home in the sold-out room: She kept the crowd dancing and giggling all night long, delivered a fierce vocal performance that would’ve made her hero Ariana Grande proud, and even signed three pairs of boobs (a personal record). No one, including myself, could’ve guessed she was on a beta-blocker.
“I put myself in positions to be nervous,” she tells NYLON. “Instead of starting [the show] with a song, it was supposed to be this bit moment, and every time I f*ck the note up. It’s not giving exactly what it does in rehearsal.”
The nerves were more than justified; not only was this the third stop of her inaugural headlining tour, but it was also the biggest room she’s played to date. The surreal experience of having her lyrics scream-sung back to her had Eli disassociating onstage during the first two nights, but by night 3 Eli was much more present. Maybe it was the meds, or maybe she’s finally settling into life as a pop star.
“Washington, D.C., felt literally like the Billie Eilish documentary,” she says. “This is the first time that I’ve played for a crowd of people who are there and singing along. It’s a really weird thing to adjust to, but it’s not negative.”
The night before, she wore a purple tulle dress pulled straight from a middle school formal circa 2009 and some knee-high Converse. Today, she’s paired the same Converse with a white and gray sequin top, a pin-striped vest, a denim skirt, and a golden-yellow handbag with a rhinestoned Lakers logo. (She picked it up for $20 at an L.A. flea market.) She describes the look as playful and aspirational, “because I’m aspiring to be something. To stand out.” In actuality, the ensemble is the result of a preflight packing frenzy that ended with her tossing anything she could grab into her suitcase 20 minutes before she left for the airport.
As if a headlining tour weren’t enough to keep her busy, the viral songstress has also been hard at work in the studio. On May 22, Eli will release a deluxe edition of her 2025 debut album, Stage Girl. Normally Eli isn’t “team deluxe,” but that rule doesn’t really apply when the original project is released as a means to make money. “It was the most Stage Girl thing ever,” she says of the rollout of her debut. “I felt like I had a storefront with one T-shirt in it and was like, ‘Guys, I have a clothing brand. It’s just one T-shirt.’ Now I have 10 T-shirts. It felt like [Stage Girl] was the preopening, and then this will be the grand opening.”
That’s not the only deluxe she has in the pipeline. Fans can hear Eli’s glittering vocals on a remixed version of Zara Larsson’s “Crush,” coproduced by Eli herself, when Larsson’s Midnight Sun deluxe arrives on May 1. For a girl who makes music in her bedroom, duetting with the child-prodigy-turned-pop-superstar was nothing short of an honor. “[Zara] represents to me a beautiful case study of what it means to let your hair down, lean into being an artist and the fruitfulness of it or the connection it can bring,” she says. “It’s just been so affirming."
Listeners can expect the collab to sound straight out of “Eli world.” Think a nylon string guitar, diva-licious vocals, and a “stupid f*cking synth” soundtracking it all. “I’m getting to live my ‘Stateside’ fantasy of coming in on the second verse and being like, ‘[mock singing],’” Eli says. “I was channeling her on her own thing, which was really fun.”
Eli has quite the famous fan base beyond Larsson, having received support from artists like Olivia Rodrigo, Doechii, and Sam Smith. Plus, she scored an invite to the Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special (“I don’t know how that happened,” she jokes) and has even DM’d with Demi Lovato about navigating her newfound pop stardom — a sentence that would’ve made 2014 Eli very proud. “The woman who I cried my eyes out to when she was singing ‘Nightingale’ at the Neon Lights tour. She’s in my orbit somehow and I was able to talk to her and be told, ‘Hey, I’m here for you. Keep doing you.’ What the f*ck? Why is she saying that to me? It’s so surreal and beautiful,” she says.
One performer Eli is still waiting on a cosign from is Ariana Grande, specifically in the form of an opening gig on Grande’s upcoming Eternal Sunshine tour. “I found it so amazing seeing Addison Rae open for Lana Del Rey, seeing Adéla open for Demi, seeing people open for their idols,” she says. “It feels like this really beautiful passing-the-torch thing.”
Lucky for Eli (and her fans), she’s a big manifester who fully subscribes to the power of delusion. In fact, it’s the basis of her Stage Girl ethos. “[Being a Stage Girl] means to be unapologetically ambitious, extremely delusional, but in a positive way,” says Eli. “And a hot f*cking mess.”
Photographs by Callum Walker Hutchinson.
