- Gayle opened up to Insider about the negative reactions to her Grammy nod for "Abcdefu."
- "Hell, I was surprised when I got nominated," she said. "I was saying some of those things to myself."
Gayle opened up about the backlash she faced when her smash hit, "Abcdefu," was nominated for a Grammy Award.
The irreverent breakup anthem topped charts last year after going viral on TikTok and received a nod for song of the year at the 2023 Grammys, a category that's designed to celebrate lyricism. (It lost to Bonnie Raitt's "Just Like That.")
Gayle cowrote the song with Sara Davis and Dave Pittenger when she was just 16 years old. In a recent interview with Insider, she reflected on the negative response to her nomination — a wave of cruel TikTok comments and tweets about her songwriting abilities, questioning whether the song was "worthy" of recognition.
"I've really come to the conclusion that the better you get or the more attention you get, or just when good things happen to you, people get angry and they get annoyed and they don't think you deserve it and they want to let you know those things," she said.
"Hell, I was surprised when I got nominated," she continued. "I was saying some of those things to myself. And it was really funny because even somebody who was like, 'You don't deserve to be here.' I'm like, 'Oh, no, it's all good. I think that too. You're chilling. No, it's fine. It's all good.' I already think these things about myself."
Overall, Gayle said the experience was "awesome" because she's not putting pressure on herself to recreate the success of "Abcdefu."
"Obviously my goal is to hopefully go back to the Grammys. But I'm very grateful for the one time that I got to go, and I really did treat it as my first and only time going," she explained. "It honestly just made me ballsier because I was really anxious the whole entire time. But I was able to walk past Beyoncé."
She also said she appreciates that "art is subjective," especially with a song like "Abcdefu," which she conceived as "sarcastic and lighthearted."
Before its release, Gayle said she was "very aware" that some people would perceive it as "stupid" — but still did not anticipate the amount of vitriol she would receive.
"I would spiral pretty quickly into almost feeling like I ruined my life, because I put out this song with my best friend that I just loved, we thought it was so funny, and then people were taking it very seriously," she said.
Gayle wrote her new song 'Everybody Hates Me' when 'Abcdefu' was dominating charts and radio play
In early 2022, "Abcdefu" became the biggest song in the world when it reached No. 1 on both of Billboard's global charts, reigning for four consecutive weeks.
But even though Gayle was a new name for many music fans, the Dallas-born artist had been cultivating her career for nearly a decade. At 10 years old, she began frequenting the Nashville bar circuit. Shortly after, she convinced her family to move to the famed hub of country stars.
Gayle was subsequently discovered at a talent-scouting event by Kara DioGuardi, a Grammy-nominated songwriter and former "American Idol" judge, who helped secure her a contract with Atlantic Records.
Now, still just 18 years old, Gayle is reckoning with the kind of success she long sought.
"Me, as a little kid who knew nothing, I was like, 'I want this song to play everywhere to the point where people get sick of it!'" she said. "And then you're this artist and this little teenage girl, and then they're like, 'I hate this song, this is so annoying.' And you're like, 'Woah, wow. This actually kind of hurts my feelings.'"
As "Abcdefu" inspired TikTok trends and dominated airwaves, Gayle received more attention — and thus, more criticism — than she had even dreamed of.
"I've been writing songs for almost nine years, and I want people to take me seriously and respect me as a musician, but then they're singing this song and singing it as this 'TikTok song,'" she said. "I am having these heights in my career, having more success than I've ever had in my whole entire life, and I still feel like shit. And I still have people criticizing me and making me feel like I've ruined my life."
But instead of floating statically in self-loathing ("I'm a teenage girl, I'm insecure as a motherfucker, and I don't need anybody's help for that"), Gayle decided to dive in head-first.
"I almost twisted it in my mind for it to be empowering, to live my life like everybody hated me, because then it got me to this place where it's like, 'OK, if I do something and if everybody hates it, then nothing matters,'" she explained. "That means you can just do whatever you want."
She said she came to a simple conclusion: "There's always going to be people who don't like me, and that's just the way it is."
Gayle's new single "Everybody Hates Me," released on Thursday, was born in the midst of this epiphany.
It's a pouty, punk-pop earworm that follows in the sonic footsteps of "Abcdefu," but treads new lyrical ground by turning her shrewd lens inward. It could nestle comfortably into an angsty playlist with Olivia Rodrigo's "Brutal," Baby Queen's "Buzzkill," and Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation."
"I've gone to therapy and mellowed out a lot more, and I still spiral, but I've really come to peace and at terms with where my life is at and what 'Abc' has done for me," she said.
"I'm growing up every day and learning new things about myself, and this is just a very specific moment of time that some parts of that mentality, I'm still kind of taking along with me," she continued with a smirk. "Because I don't feel like everybody hates me, but sometimes living your life like everybody hates you? It's kind of fun."
Listen to Gayle and more on Spotify with Insider's rising artist radio.