Biography
Beabadoobee (born Beatrice Kristi Ilejay Laus, June 3, 2000, Iloilo City, Philippines) is a Filipino-British singer-songwriter whose music draws on 1990s alternative rock, grunge, bedroom pop, and shoegaze.[1] She moved with her family to west London at age three, growing up between two musical worlds: her father introduced her to traditional Filipino (Pinoy) music, while her mother guided her toward Alanis Morissette, The Cranberries, and Suzanne Vega, artists she credits as foundational to her creative identity.
Her childhood in London was not without difficulty. At an all-girls secondary school she was among very few Filipino students, and navigated the pressures of immigration alongside financial hardship.[3] Music became a private refuge. At seventeen she recorded a song called "Coffee" and uploaded it to SoundCloud, largely on a whim. It accumulated over 300,000 YouTube views. Dirty Hit Records took notice and signed her in April 2018.[1]
Her stage name, now internationally recognizable, originated as a joke. When her friend and producer Oscar Lang was about to upload her early recordings, she chose the invented name from a fake Instagram account she had created, since her actual names kept being rejected by the platform.[1]
A series of EPs followed her signing: Lice and Patched Up (2018), Loveworm and Space Cadet (2019). She was shortlisted for the BRIT Awards Rising Star Award in December 2019. Her 2020 debut album Fake It Flowers received near-universal acclaim, scoring 81 out of 100 on Metacritic, and Billboard named her Top New Rock Artist of 2020.[1]
Her second album Beatopia (2022) built her profile further, spawning the hit "The Perfect Pair" and leading to co-headline tours. Her third album, This Is How Tomorrow Moves (2024), produced by Rick Rubin, debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart.[1] She supported Olivia Rodrigo's Guts World Tour and Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, cementing her position as one of the most prominent young figures in guitar-based British indie.
In March 2026, she released "All I Did Was Dream Of You" (featuring María Zardoya of The Marías) as the first single from her forthcoming fourth studio album, via a new global partnership between Dirty Hit and Interscope Records.[2] She has described the new record as being about accepting difficult emotions and understanding the value of feeling everything fully, a thematic pivot toward psychological depth after the anthemic scale of her third album.[2]
References
- Beabadoobee - Wikipedia — Comprehensive overview of career and biography
- Beabadoobee Spring 2026 Interview - Dazed — In-depth interview covering artistic philosophy and the forthcoming fourth album
- Meet Beabadoobee - South China Morning Post — Profile covering Filipino heritage and London upbringing