As Mimi Webb prepares to release her second album, Confessions, we caught up with the rising British popstar to find out how she "dug deep" when writing these songs, her relationship to social media and the sage advice her friend and fellow music star Cian Ducrot passed on.
Mimi Webb may or may not be wearing sunglasses indoors as we chat over Zoom. If there's anyone who can pull it off, it's the exuberant 25-year-old singer sitting before me whose star is sure to rise even higher this year.
It would be an understatement to say she's had a whirlwind few years since her debut single Before I Go went viral in spring 2020, the not-so-halcyon early days of the pandemic, when it was featured by social media tycoon Charli D'Amelio on TikTok.
Her debut EP, Seven Shades of Heartbreak, which featured the single Good Without, was released in 2021, followed by her first album Amelia in 2022, which included the hit House on Fire. Confessions, her second studio album, is coming out after the popstar scrapped the original version as she wanted to "dive in a lot deeper".
"I was very scared at the start," she tells RTÉ Entertainment, speaking from home in the UK with her adorable dog Bear occasionally making an appearance in the background. "I remember calling up being like, 'Guys, I'm just not ready'.
"Love it how I then end up releasing an album at the same time as everyone else," she laughs, referencing the slew of popstars dropping albums this month.
"But it just felt like the right decision and I just had to trust my gut on it. I'm so overly excited and happy with how it's sounding."
"With Confessions I'm definitely diving in a lot deeper," the singer continues. "I feel like with Amelia, that's my first baby, but it also doesn't really go any deeper into the surface.
"Maturing and going through real-life situations - you do just end up writing about a lot more other stuff."
The Canterbury-born singer, who has been writing songs since she was just 13, says this record will see her "confessing a lot of truths".
"I'm breaking that fourth wall down. I'm diving into a lot more heartbreaking situations that aren't the classic heartbreak that I've written about in the past," she explains.
Her new single, the powerful ballad You Don't Look At Me The Same, is testament to this newfound vulnerability, coming in the wake of her parent's divorce earlier this year.
"It definitely was something that was difficult at the time," she says of writing the deeply personal track. "I remember thinking 'Do I go there, do I not?' You always question yourself on that. [It was] the best thing I did, even for our family, it really brought us all together even more.
"I think when you're vulnerable - that's the strongest form of love as well. It was emotional, it was tough at times, but definitely therapeutic and something we all now look at in a really beautiful way."
Her parents are "so excited and happy" to see her success in the music industry continue to grow.
"I love attention, so they're like, 'She's getting it! She's getting exactly what she wants!'", she cackles.
As well as being unafraid to poke fun at herself, Webb is refreshingly unbashful about her pop ambitions.
"I knew I wanted to be a big superstar," she reveals of her musical aspirations growing up. "For me it was a way of using my voice. I always thought it was impossible to be an artist. I assumed that you were born an artist or you were born a superstar - like you were just straight away put into the industry.
"And then as you get to learn about the industry [you find out] it's a whole world, a whole business. When I started to read into it more and figure it out, I was like, 'Right, great, I can do this. There's a way for me to do this myself.'"
The life of a popstar definitely isn't all it's cracked up to be.
"Sometimes I'm like, 'How am I here right now?' It's crazy," she says of this stage in her career.
"It's hard work. There's a lot of self-judgment. You see other people do things that you're like, 'Oh, that's a good idea. I want to try that'.
"Sometimes my brain hurts because I'm thinking of so many things and ideas of what I want to do. We're also not just writing music - we're performing it, we're promoting it around multiple radio stations, interviews, and then we're being influencers as well - social creators.
"We're driving our teams forward, we're driving all the ideas, making sure people are getting things done. I'm very hands on where I'm like, ‘Has this been done? Has this been done?'
"It's like running a business, really, which is the part that I never really understood before with my first album."
Webb says that taking care of her mental health while working in such a high-pressure, public-facing industry is crucial.
"Therapy is important. I love therapy, I do that every week", she says. "It just has its ups and downs, because at the end of the day - you are your brand.
"But when you get messages from people... I actually got a lovely message the other day from someone that was like, 'Your music saved my life'.
"Moments like that get you, because that's all that matters. That is a dream come true to me - that I'm able to be there and help others. That makes you realize it's all so worth it."
TikTok has played a massive part in Webb's career taking off, but she is ambivalent about social media.
"It's changed massively in the last two, three years," she says. "I think there's things we're not meant to see that we see and it's too much for the human brain at times.
"We can compare ourselves because of what we're seeing other people do, because everything looks perfect. But then obviously there are some great sides to being able to connect with my fans when I want to update them. That's the part I'm very grateful for."
Webb is easy company - friendly, talkative and unguarded in a way that's atypical for someone in the public eye. She says she wasn't always this down to earth.
"Back in the day, [my] head was just gone," she admits. "But I think when you get to do it the second time round you see through it all. You're focused, you're grounded, you know who you are and all that stuff doesn't matter.
"The egos - I'm just so over that. At the end of the day we're here to connect with other people, we're not here to show who's got the better this, better that... That stuff for me is just not on and I think people see through that these days as well."
Watch: Mimi Webb tells RTÉ Entertainment the advice she got from Irish singer Cian Ducrot
Webb is prepared for the ups and down a pop career will bring.
"The good thing is you can keep going and going," she says. "I have a friend who's an Irish artist, Cian Ducrot. He's a legend. He said, 'We'll never give up, we will keep going and going'.
"That's something I've felt really inspired by, because it's so true. We'll have bad days, good days, and we know we're just always gonna keep going until we're there.
"And even then we're probably going to keep going! I think that was really inspiring and that is definitely the crux of it as an artist."
The popstar, who has supported major artists such as the Jonas Brothers, Tate McRae, and Benson Boone, is soon bringing Confessions on tour, with a date in Dublin's 3Olympia Theatre on 10 October.
"I'm so excited, I love Dublin. We always have the best time," she says of her Irish date. It's clear she has her sights firmly set on playing huge arenas as a solo artist.
"Success looks like selling an arena, arena tours selling out," she says. "I think the bigger the rooms get - that is the success, that's what we want as performers.
"Obviously, you know the acknowledgement as well around that and being able to dip into different avenues, but I think for me, that is the goal, to be able to see those rooms grow and grow."
So how is Mimi Webb feeling now, as a person and an artist?
"I'm feeling... How am I feeling?" she says after a pause. "Super solid. I know where I'm going. I can see the path. I'm just really grateful.
"Just enjoying it, really looking forward to just having this amazing experience again and being able to do it with the right mindset... just soaking every moment up.
"You forget to do that sometimes because things can move at such a fast pace."
Mimi Webb's album Confessions is out on Friday, 12 September. She plays Dublin's 3Olympia Theatre on Friday, 10 October 2025.
