Mandy Moore has finally learned to embrace her past as a teen pop star after spending years "a little embarrassed" by her early career success.
The singer/actress was a teenager back in 1999, when she first hit the big time with her songs Candy, Walk Me Home, and So Real, but she later confessed she wasn't impressed with her material.
Moore has since reinvented herself as an actress with her star turn in hit TV drama series This Is Us, but she recently returned to her music roots for Silver Landings, her first album in 11 years, and she is only now able to truly appreciate just how instrumental her pop beginnings have been to both her personal and professional development - after trying to hide from her past for so long.
"I think I've sort of come full circle on who I was at that age and the creative choices that were made, because I didn't have a ton of creative control, so I think that allowed me to feel a little embarrassed and separate from it," Moore explained on U.S. breakfast show Today.
"But I recognise that that 15 year old is in me still; I carry her around. She's the reason I'm talking to you guys today, and so to disparage that time and that music is not fair."
And Moore even used her newfound acceptance of her teenage experiences as inspiration for a new track, titled Fifteen: "It's about coming to terms with having affection for this chapter of my life," she shared.
The 35 year old released Silver Landings last week (06Mar20), and her music comeback has been made all the more "magical" by having her husband, rocker Taylor Goldsmith, join her on the road after serving as the album's co-writer, alongside Moore and producer Mike Viola.
"It feels so incredible to be on this journey and to have Taylor by my side and for someone to be so sure of who they are and what they bring to the table as a musician, I had no idea," she smiled.
"Like, I've never experienced anything like that before. It's the most beautiful thing, and then to be able to share this music and write this record together and be touring it. I look over to my left all the time and there's my husband with his eyes closed, playing the guitar solo. It's the coolest, it's so magical!"
Moore wed Dawes star Goldsmith in 2018.
She was previously married to fellow musician Ryan Adams, whom she subsequently accused of psychological abuse as part of a 2019 expose in The New York Times, in which she joined a handful of women who called him out for sexual misconduct and manipulative behaviour.
