07 September 2021
Newsdesk
TikTok superstar and creative force Abby Roberts has been unveiled as King Kong Magazine’s AW21 cover star.
Abby is the biggest beauty TikTok creator in the world, with over 16.6M followers and 1.3B likes, and in the accompanying interview talks about the pressure of having such a huge online following but also how the app has helped her gain the confidence to share more of herself through music. Abby has been busy in the studio working with the likes of Matias Tellez (Girl In Red), Mati Schwartz (YUNGBLUD, Halsey) and Martin & Noah Terefe (Alec Benjamin, Jason Mraz) and will be releasing music in October.
ON HER UPCOMING MUSIC & GAINING THE CONFIDENCE TO SHARE IT:
“I’m very influenced by bedroom pop and indie rock, those are the two main genres that I listen to. But I take inspiration from all sorts of different sounds and eras. My music just really just depends on my whole mood and how I’m feeling that day.”
“I want to use my music as an opportunity for my audience and other people to get to know me a lot more as a person. Now, my followers want to know all about my life, so I share more than just make-up. I’ve talked about a lot of personal problems in my music.”
“I never said that I was a make-up artist. That label was given to me because it’s what popped off first but I was still doing all this stuff in the background, I still loved fashion so much and loved music so much, but I just never really shared it. I was never the person in drama class singing. But then TikTok gave me the confidence to film a singing video and share it with millions of people.”
ON DEALING WITH THE PRESSURE OF HER HUGE FOLLOWING:
“I don’t, I’m losing my mind. No, I go to a therapist when I feel like I need it. Sometimes, I’m ok and I’m like yeah, everything’s fine. I do my artwork and switch my phone off sometimes. I go and hang out with my friends who I went to school with. Well, most of the time I feel like my friends can be better therapists because they always know the situation. I think it’s just comforting to be around people that I can trust, either just being around friends that I’ve known for ages or my family, they’ve got my best interest at heart.”
ON BEING DUBBED A TIKTOK ICON:
“It can catch me off guard sometimes. It’s quite hard to visualise that the numbers are actual people. But it’s definitely made me more of a confident person, having to meet new people all the time and hearing that I’ve inspired or helped them in any sort of way. I didn’t even intentionally do that, it was just through being myself on social media.”
