Tate McRae reveals which pop girl era changed her life

Tate McRae is carrying the pop music torch for 2025 with her Miss Possessive headlining tour and hits like “Sports Car.” But she says her interest in being an arena-filling pop star was really sparked by the ones who came before her.

For her Paper magazine cover story, Tate was asked which “pop girl era” had the most impact on her as a kid. She names Ariana Grande‘s Dangerous Woman era, which came out when Tate was 12 or 13. “I think that’s the first time I really started to stan people and obsess over pop music and make my first-ever music playlists on my phone,” says the Canadian star.

“That’s why I paid so much attention to Ariana and Taylor [Swift] at the time, and all the pop girls, because that’s when you get that feeling where you’re like, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to be 17, 18, 19 and do my makeup like this, and maybe release a song like this, and roll something out like this,"” she continues.

“So I always reference Dangerous Woman because I always thought it was really incredible pop music that felt like it changed my life.”

Tate says seeing the a cappella version of “Dangerous Woman” on YouTube was “formative for me,” but, she says, so was seeing “Hands to Myself” by Selena Gomez. Oh, and Selena’s ex-boyfriend helped, too.

Tate tells Paper, “I remember the first arena tour I ever saw was Justin Bieber’s Purpose world tour, and that was my first concert. From that day, my biggest dream ever was to headline an arena. So this year is pretty surreal for me. Some days, I walk into rehearsal and get full-body chills just knowing that I’m going to perform for that many people.”