Gracie Abrams Is Grateful for Close Relationship with Mom: ‘Took So Long to Get to This Point’
Gracie Abrams Is Grateful for Close Relationship with Mom: ‘Took So Long to Get to This Point’
Lily BrownThu, June 25, 2026 at 10:59 PM UTC
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Katie McGrath and Gracie Abrams attends the 66th GRAMMY Awards on February 04, 2024Credit: Kayla Oaddams/WireImage -
Gracie Abrams reflects on her teenage years and how they shaped her relationship with her mom
Abrams credits her parents for fostering open communication and addressing conflict in a healthy way
Her upcoming single “Look at My Life” explores what it means to blossom into your full adult self
Gracie Abrams may be leaning into the tongue-in-cheek title of her new album, Daughter From Hell, but she's the first to admit the label doesn't quite match who she is now.
“I decided to be decent for you all,” Abrams, 26, joked during a June 25 Popcast episode, though she quickly acknowledged the title comes from a much more complicated place — especially when it comes to her relationship with her mother.
The album's title track, she explained, came late in the writing process and opened a door she hadn't fully stepped through before.
“It felt like the first time I was able to write a song, but really write anything other than a text apologizing to my mom for being so brutal growing up,” Abrams said.
Looking back, Abrams doesn't sugarcoat that period of her life.
“Obviously, adolescence is tough for the child and for the parent,” she said. “I think my mom and I, we earned our relationship we have now, for sure. She is like, my favorite person. We FaceTime. I call her like six times a day.”
Abrams is the daughter of filmmaker J.J. Abrams, the writer, director and producer behind projects including Alias, Lost, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Trek. Her mother, Katie McGrath, is a film and television producer who has worked alongside her husband for decades.
Katie McGrath, J.J. Abrams and Gracie Abrams attend the CAA pre-Oscar party on March 13, 2026Credit: Randy Shropshire/Getty
Despite growing up in one of Hollywood's most recognizable creative families, Abrams has often spoken about the close-knit dynamic she shares with her parents and two brothers, Henry, 28, and August, 20. Pressed on how that version of her, the so-called “daughter from hell,” actually showed up in real life, Abrams laughed at the disconnect.
“It just took so long to get to this point,” she said. “As I have grown up, I have luckily had more time to reflect on change. I owed her a big fat sorry and a thank you.”
Part of that reflection has meant rethinking how she understood her teenage years.
“It wasn't always lovely,” she stressed. “Because [my parents] knew me very well, their radar for when things were off or if I was being like a total bitch, they're like, ‘You're being one.'”
Director J.J. Abrams (R) and Gracie Abrams attend the 2016 MTV Movie AwardsCredit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Still, she credits her parents with handling conflict in a way that ultimately brought the family closer together.
“I feel lucky to have grown up in the house that I did with the parents that I did for a million reasons but specifically the way that they chose to deal with friction and conflict in our house was very much unlike how I would see it happen in other families,” Abrams said.
She added, “I think there can be some sweeping under the rug of hard conversations that take longer in the moment, but that you ultimately, if you're lucky and stick with each other, can break through to the other side.”
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That honesty runs through her music, including the title track, which she didn't set out to write.
“I wasn't going into that song [or] that session that day thinking of that,” she said. “When Aaron [Dessner, her co-writer and producer] started ripping on the guitar, it just did that thing.”
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What followed surprised even her.
“I was really hardcore weeping in a way I haven't [while] writing a song in a long time,” Abrams said. “There are some descriptors and I think there's a softness. That song in particular, while it is a love letter and a thank you note, it also presents personal anxieties about never achieving the quality of person that I know my mother to be.”
She also reflected on what it meant to finally put those feelings into words.
“I don't think I've ever said that to her directly before and it was nice to vomit that up,” she said.
When asked what kind of “hellion” she was, Abrams downplayed the label, but didn't entirely reject her “Daughter From Hell” era either — just the idea that it defines her.
“It wasn't like the craziest s--- you've ever heard,” Abrams said. “But there was lots of sneaking out.”
Abrams admitted she wasn't always easy on her parents as a teenager.
“I think the oxygen in our house was being taken up in different places. I was also the middle child,” she said. “I felt socially ambitious but also weirdly... There were just lots of these contradictions and I think I would sometimes put myself in positions that were actually unsafe.”
She added that growing up in Los Angeles only complicated things.
“If I put myself in my parents' position, I would also be scared s---less at times,” she said. “It was just lots of lying.”
Abrams' upcoming single, titled “Look at My Life,” is out Thursday, June 25.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
