Popstar Kim Petras has opened up about the difficult start to her iconic music career.
If you’re a lover of pop music, chances are you’ve encountered Petras and her expansive catalogue.
Since making her debut in 2017 with her classic single I Don’t Want It All, the singer-songwriter has seen huge amounts of commercial success.
Although the pop world is opening up to the Coconuts singer, that wasn’t always the case for the 29-year-old.
In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Petras candidly opened up about her rocky start in the industry and the pushback she received.
“In the beginning when I did the rounds to major labels and played them the music, people didn’t really get it,” she explained.
“People were kind of like, ‘Ah, I don’t know who the fanbase is for this.’ It was kind of like almost a little bit like, ‘You’re going to be a gay artist, and that’s niche and we don’t know.’ So I got shitty deals offered to me.”
Before pursuing a music career full time, Petras was renowned in Germany for her documentary that detailed her journey as a transgender teen. At the time, she was one of the youngest people in the country to medically transition.
Due to the documentary, Petras revealed that the media saw her as a “joke” instead of an emerging talent.
“Nobody wants to talk about my music, people don’t want to work with me. I’m just, like, ‘the tranny on TV’ to people,” she said.
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The cold reception of the media inspired her to leave Europe and take the reigns of her budding career elsewhere.
“Back then I wanted to get discovered more than anything. But I never did. And then I learned like, shit, I gotta do it myself,” she said.
After moving to LA, the songstress told BuzzFeed that she still encountered pushback from radio stations even after creating her own record label.
“But all the radio stations were weirded out. And it was like a lot of them had probably never met a trans person,” she said.
“Also it was like, ‘This is, like, loud and you sing really loud, and it’s not what’s happening right now.’ They were like, ‘Sorry.’”
Even though she experienced a sleuth of roadblocks, the singer has gone on to become an international pop sensation.
2021 proved to be a landmark year for the singer, who became the first out trans performer at both the MTV Video Music Awards and the MTV Europe Music Awards.
She also signed her first major record deal with Republic Records and is gearing up for the release of her debut album in 2022.
It’s looking like the Kim Petras reign is just beginning.
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