The Honest Truth

Songwriter and hitmaker Julia Michaels is embarking on her solo singing career, and making sincerity the next big thing in pop.

- Aly Comingore

The palm of Julia Michaels’s right hand bears a small stick-and-poke tattoo that simply reads “I love you.” I first catch a glimpse of it as the 23-year-old songwriter flips through the menu at the small Los Angeles restaurant where we meet for breakfast. I see it again when she whips out her phone to find a video of her puppy, Samson, adorably howling along to a fire truck siren. And again as she laughs about her recent trip to Las Vegas, where she walked the red carpet at the Billboard Music Awards in 100-degree heat. As she takes a bite of her egg sandwich, Michaels is all jokes and smiles, dressed in a breezy leopard-print dress that billows dramatically when she gestures, something she does often when she tells a story or gets excited about a topic of conversation.

“Sometimes I forget to tell myself I love myself,” Michaels explains when I ask about her tattoo. “So it’s a little reminder to love myself and breathe. Everyone has those days—me probably more than most.” That little reminder helped inspire “Issues,” her first single—and bona fide hit—as a solo artist. The track, which dropped earlier this year, is a slow-building ode to love that finds Michaels boldly embracing her own anxieties and imperfections. On it, she belts lyrics such as “I’ve got issues/ You’ve got ‘em too/ So give ‘em all to me/ And I’ll give mine to you” in a voice that sounds both self-assured and heartbreakingly fragile.