Gracie Abrams worried feeling ‘secure and stable’ with Paul Mescal would threaten songwriting

Gracie Abrams was worried her “secure and stable” relationship with Paul Mescal would threaten her drive to write music.

The Close to You singer had spent much of her music career writing songs about feeling insecure in relationships, among other topics, and often expressed her honest thoughts in her songwriting rather than telling her partner.

However, Abrams has been able to communicate openly and healthily with the Irish actor, whom she began dating in 2024, so she feared she would have nothing left to write about.

“I was worried feeling secure and stable was threatening my drive to write music,” Abrams said in a cover interview for Vogue magazine. “It freaked me out.”

So for her next album, the 26-year-old decided to “mine deeper” and write about who she was when she was younger, someone who “always chased what made (her) feel electrocuted” and did “things that now keep (her) up at night”.

Abrams ended up making Daughter from Hell, after which she texted her mother, Katie McGrath, to apologise for her bad behaviour.

“I was like, ‘S**t, I really was a terrorist. I really took years off (your life), didn’t I?’ And she was just like, ‘Absolutely,'” the Us hitmaker recalled. “I wish I could go back and spend all of the time that I spent fighting my mom just listening to every drop of wisdom she has for me.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Abrams revealed that she lived in London with Mescal while he filmed Hamnet, and will be primarily based there while he shoots the four-film Beatles project, in which he plays Paul McCartney.

Recalling their evenings together during the Hamnet shoot, she shared, “It feels like every day you come home and read the greatest book ever – that’s what it’s like to be in conversation with someone making something like that.”

She added of his director Chloé Zhao and co-star Jessie Buckley: “The person you love gets to be surrounded by witches. It’s magical.”

Abrams and Mescal generally keep their relationship private, however, she joined him on the red carpet at the BAFTA Film Awards and Oscars earlier this year to support Hamnet.

Daughter from Hell will be released on 17 July.