Mae Muller has been unveiled as the singer who’ll be representing the UK at Eurovision this year.
The London-born 25-year-old will be performing her original track I Wrote A Song at the contest in Liverpool this year, where the UK will be hosting on behalf of reigning champions Ukraine.
She’ll be hoping to follow on from the success of last year’s British entrant Sam Ryder, whose runner-up placement gave the UK our highest position at Eurovision in decades.
For those curious about Mae’s story so far, here’s what we can tell you about the UK’s 2023 Eurovision entrant…
First of all, Mae Muller already has a surprising Eurovision connection
As a nine-year-old, Mae appeared in Eurovision 2022 host Mika’s music video for his hit single Grace Kelly. You might remember her as the little girl sitting on Mika’s piano in a lime green dress.
Mae had a full-circle moment in 2020, when she reunited with Grace Kelly director Sophie Muller (no relation, apparently) on the videos for her singles So Annoying and I Don’t Want Your Money.
She has a very specific point of view in her music
Mae grew up listening to British musicians like Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse (she even landed her cameo in Mika’s video by auditioning with a song by the former), which clearly had an impact on her own songwriting later down the line.
Those already familiar with Mae’s music will know she takes a candid and frank approach to her lyrics, on songs like Therapist (“you don’t need a girlfriend, you just need a therapist”), Anticlimax (“I got a new man who’s making me moan, and making up for the things that you lack, all you are to me is one big anticlimax”), HBD (“happy fucking birthday, I hope it is the worst day of the year”) and Dick, the lyrics of which are most likely too racy for the Eurovision stage.
Like her Eurovision predecessor Sam Ryder, Mae has already experienced big success on TikTok
Mae’s biggest hit came in 2021, when she teamed up with Neiked and Polo G on the breezy bop track Better Days.
The song ended up blowing up on TikTok, earning Mae her first top 40 single here in the UK, while overseas, Better Days did even better and peaked at number 23 in the Billboard charts.
The internet has actually played a big part in Mae’s success already
Long before she was signed, Mae worked at a pub in her hometown of Kentish Town and at an American Apparel store, but had already begun self-recording her own demos (which she did with the help of a friend, reportedly in exchange for a bottle of wine).
When these demos went on SoundCloud, they quickly caught the attention of her first manager, which led to her being signed by Capitol.
There’s a chance you may have already seen Mae Muller live without realising it
In 2019, she was the opening act for Little Mix on their LM5 arena tour.
Two years later, Mae performed her biggest headlining show to date at London’s Kentish Town Forum, a stone’s throw away from where she grew up.
She’s also performed at Reading/Leeds Festival and on TV shows like The Tonight Show and Sunday Brunch.
Mae is also renowned for her sense of humour
Case and point – for Halloween 2019, she performed on stage for her Little Mix support slot at The O2 while dressed as a giant Muller corner.
She took this one step further during the pandemic, when she began fronting an Instagram live interview series called Muller’s Corner, interviewing guests like Little Mix’s Leigh-Anne Pinnock. This is also the name of her current mailing list.
Even when the music industry was impacted by the events of 2020, Mae was still hard at work
It wasn’t all baking banana bread and Instagram live sessions with celebs during lockdown for Mae Muller.
“I thought that it was going to be the best year of my life, to be honest,” she told HuffPost UK at the end of 2020. “I thought it was the year that all the grafting and the hustle was all going to pay off, when really, it was actually the year we’ve did the most hustling and the most grafting.”
This included songwriting alone at home, shooting her own music video and heading straight into the studio “as soon as” restrictions were lifted. (Read our full 2020 interview with Mae Muller here).
Like Sam Ryder before her, Mae actually began teasing I Wrote A Song weeks before it was even released, let alone announce as the UK’s Eurovision song
In fact, Mae’s existing fans already began sharing their own takes on the track using only the snippet that had been released.
Helpfully, Mae even put together a history of her musical journey so far together on TikTok shortly before being announced as a Eurovision competitor
Check that out here. Take a listen to Mae Muller’s I Wrote A Song below: