Tate Mcrae Says She Read Sylvia Plath During Her Tour and Thought, ‘I Am Her.’
“I remember reading Sylvia Plath being like, ‘I am her.’ My thoughts felt so dark at the time, and I felt so lonely.”
Tate McRae says the 88-date “Miss Possessive” tour left her so depleted that she wanted “to go into a black room and not look in a mirror for six months.”
She couldn’t sleep and had to counter the thoughts running through her head: “You’re not the worst person in the world. You’re not the ugliest person in the world,” she remembers telling herself.
McRae read poetry on the road and relied on her journal to make sense of what she was feeling. She saw herself in Sylvia Plath and repeatedly returned to an Anaïs Nin line: “I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.”
The tour grossed more than $100 million, but seven months after its November finale at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, much of it remains a blur. “I have early signs of dementia, I think, because I can’t remember anything that’s ever happened to me,” she told Variety.
Now 23, McRae is regrouping in New York, where she moved less than a year ago. She lives in NoHo, does hot Pilates, has learned to cook ground turkey, eggs and sweet potatoes, and calls her mom in Canada about seven times a day. “I’m living with my mom on FaceTime,” she said.
Onstage, she becomes Tatiana, an alter ego she compares to Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce. The character helps her tap into the confidence and energy her performances demand.
McRae broke through with her 2023 album “Think Later” and the No. 3 hit “Greedy.” Her 2025 follow-up, “So Close to What,” debuted at No. 1. She is also headlining Montreal’s Osheaga and Chicago’s Lollapalooza over the same weekend in early August, with Osheaga marking her first festival performance in Canada.
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