British pop sensation Charli XCX opened up about how her experiences growing up as a mixed-race woman and musician influenced her groundbreaking album Brat. The singer, whose father Jon is Scottish and mother Shameera is Indian, spoke candidly in interviews with Dazed magazine, Vogue Singapore, and GQ about feeling like an outsider and how those feelings fueled her music.

Growing Up Between Two Worlds

Charli, 33, shared with Swedish rapper Yung Lean for Dazed magazine’s Winter 2025 issue that she often struggled to feel accepted. “I never felt accepted where I went, whether that was in school for being half-Indian and not blonde, or not fully relating to my Indian self because I was half-white,” Charli explained. “There was this weird, displaced feeling, where I couldn’t quite fit into either place.”

Raised in England, Charli recalled the duality of her upbringing. “When I would go and visit my mum’s family, I felt very Indian,” she told Vogue Singapore in 2024. “It was all the classic scenes of my nani and bappa cooking with Bollywood films playing in the background and everybody speaking in Gujarati. But then I’d go home to this other world, which was largely white. I never quite felt like I fit into either world, which I think commonly happens with mixed-race kids.”

Her mixed-race identity also shaped her early experiences in school. Charli told GQ that she often felt like “a loser” among predominantly white classmates. “I had friends, but my school was full of blonde white girls, and I was this half-Indian girl with frizzy hair and different interests,” she said. “That always made me feel a little bit rejected. I thought if I made music, people would think I was interesting… Deep down, one of my biggest fears was being boring.”

From Struggles to Brat: How Feeling Displaced Fueled Creativity

Charli described her struggles as a mixture of being outside the mainstream music scene while simultaneously wanting to reject it. She said this “concoction” of feelings inspired her album Brat, giving her the courage to embrace her unique identity and creativity.

Her viral track “Apple” from Brat is particularly personal, exploring her relationship with her parents. The lyrics reflect a “sticky relationship” with Jon and Shameera Aitchison and quickly became a TikTok sensation in the summer of 2024. Charli’s connection to her family has always been a guiding force in her music, despite moments of tension or feeling misunderstood.

Creative Evolution Beyond Music

Following the release of Brat, Charli admitted to feeling uninspired by music. Instead, she turned her attention toward film and other creative pursuits. “I’ve always been more inspired by film. So I think at that point, when I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired by music, I wanted to delve more into a different creative space,” she said.

Charli is now expanding her talents into acting, with seven upcoming films: 100 Nights of Hero (2025), Sacrifice (2025), Erupcja (2025), Faces of Death, I Want Your Sex, The Gallerist, and The Moment (2026). In The Moment, a mockumentary-style film, Charli portrays a fictionalized version of herself and pokes fun at her Brat era. The film is set to hit theaters on January 30, 2026.

Charli XCX’s Journey of Identity and Expression

Charli XCX’s journey demonstrates how personal challenges and feelings of displacement can fuel artistic expression. By embracing her mixed-race identity and exploring her experiences through music and film, she has created a powerful and relatable voice in contemporary pop culture.