Ep. 245: Madison Beer Becoming Yourself with the World Watching

Today’s guest is one of the most quietly enduring artists in modern pop — a songwriter and performer who’s spent over a decade growing up in public, learning how to separate perception from identity. She was discovered online as a teenager and quickly thrust into an industry that had already decided who she was. But behind the headlines, she was doing the real work — writing, refining her sound, and slowly building a career on her own terms. This is a conversation about perception vs reality, creative control, and what it actually takes to become yourself in an industry that benefits from misunderstanding you. And The Writer Is… Madison Beer! What you'll learn: • What it actually feels like to grow up in the public eye • The gap between how artists are perceived vs who they really are • Why longevity in music requires emotional resilience • How Madison developed her sound and creative identity over time • The pressure of early success — and rebuilding from it • Why being misunderstood can either break you or sharpen you This episode is brought to you by the NMPA — supporting songwriters and protecting the value of music. And by Splice — the world’s largest library of sounds and samples, built for creators. Chapters : 0:00 Intro 1:42 Madison’s favorite songs of hers 3:00 Lyrics or melody first? 4:30 Ross meeting Madison at 13 6:00 Madison’s childhood, early memories 7:00 Going through parent’s divorce in early childhood 9:45 Why singing the national anthem is hard 10:00 Her family’s early encouragement 11:00 Madison’s first song 13:00 Starting her career at 10 18:40 Getting discovered overnight from a Justin Bieber tweet. 19:11 Contracts in music industry 19:58 Meeting Justin Bieber 21:46 Why getting dropped is a blessing 24:00 Struggling with early music identity 26:00 Why she felt she couldn’t fight back on creative control early on 28:00 finding her power through social media 31:55 Reclaiming creative control 33:50 writing reckless 35:28 Home with you 36:25 the importance of your collaborators 39:12 the original demo to Reckless 41:13 being easier to write dark songs than happy songs 41:40 the challenge of writing her new album 41:54 NMPA 42:36 Splice 43:26 Going back into the label system 45:00 her first tour in lockdown 46:50 Madison’s touring non negotiables 52:00 the story of Home to another one 53:41 Writing darker songs while in a happy relationship 55:55 Setting boundaries for mental health 56:55 “Showed Me” as an interpolation 58:37 Her mental health struggles and path to healing 1:01:54 How her album locket Freed her 1:03:25 the unlikely story of bittersweet 1:05:30 what writing a song with strangers is like 1:09:00 loneliness and missing out on a normal childhood 1:12:00 Dealing with constant criticism and how she manages it 1:12:47 Surviving the lowest point of her life 1:16:30 how she currently manages her mental health Hosted by Ross Golan Produced by Joe London and Jad Saad Edited by Jad Saad Post Production VFX by Pratik Karki Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Ep. 245: Madison Beer Becoming Yourself with the World Watching is an episode from And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan by And The Writer Is.

This episode is 1:21:32 long.

This episode was published on Mar 31, 2026.

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