Fletcher has a few revelations to make. In fact, the singer born Cari Elise Fletcher has 11 of them, manifested as tracks on her third studio album, Would You Still Love Me If You Really Knew Me?, out July 18. All 11 songs are secrets spilled in one form or another; some of them might shock even the most fervent of Fletcher fans. Still, they are stories she had to tell.
On the album’s intro, “Party,” Fletcher sings about how she’s not the chaotic, drama-fueled pop star who taunted her ex’s new girlfriend on the viral 2022 hit “Becky’s So Hot.” “I’d love to let you love me/Cause I’m that kind of whore/Who needed the attention/I don’t need anymore/It’s not that kind of party,” she sings.
So what kind of party is it? “Maybe the kind of party where I have a chill, more intimate heart-to-heart with close friends,” Fletcher tells Rolling Stone in a new interview. “And revealing some really vulnerable shit.” In a note to fans announcing her new project, the singer calls Would You Still Love Me If You Really Knew Me? “both an open wound and an act of liberation.”
On the single “Boy,” released today, she shares something even more personal: “I kissed a boy,” she sings. “And I know it’s not what you wanted to hear/And it wasn’t on your bingo card this year/Well it wasn’t on mine/I fell in love.”
Fletcher has long emphasized her sexual fluidity, and she has many queer fans; the relationships that she’s sung about have, until now, exclusively been with women. “There will be people that feel disappointed and feel confused and have questions,” Fletcher tells RS. “Girl, I had questions and I was confused too. It shocked me just as much as anybody else.”
Of course, who a person chooses to date and how that person identifies across the gender spectrum doesn’t negate anyone’s queerness. “I am so proud to be queer,” Fletcher continues. “That is not something that has ever wavered or changed. Being queer for me is this lens that I get to view life through.” She knows not everyone will understand what she’s sharing, but she’s seemingly found peace with that in the name of being unabashedly herself.
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Fletcher tells Rolling Stone that the flood of emotions that informed her new album happened around late 2024 and early 2025, after her last tour. When asked whether she and the muse behind “Boy” are still together, she doesn’t answer directly, but makes it known that she’s in a great place. “I am getting to experience love again,” she says. “That is the most magical feeling in the entire world. I met a boy who is somehow way more connected to his feelings and his emotions and his heart than even I am.”
Would You Still Love Me If You Really Knew Me? is a candid retrospective of the singer’s twenties, navigating love in all its forms, and thinking about fame. On “Hi, Everyone Leave Please,” Fletcher questions why she’s not getting more radio play despite selling out Radio City Music Hall (“Kinda bruises my ego”). She says it’s her favorite song on the new project.
During our conversation, Fletcher takes a few emotional pauses while chatting about identity, her support system, the new album, and feeling like Cari was getting lost in her larger Fletcher persona.
What message did you want to send with “Boy”?
I was in the studio with [songwriters] Jen Decilveo and Shane McAnally. We were all discussing our queer journeys. I really wanted to capture and talk about what was happening in mine. I had met a boy and started feeling romantic and emotional feelings and we kissed. I was like, “What the fuck is going on?” My whole world felt flipped upside down. I’ve always written about my love stories and my heart and very candidly written about what I’ve been experiencing. “Boy” is just another love story. ”Boy” is just one revelation of many. It’s not an album about a guy.
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I think I became known for this chaos and this toxicity and bitterness and sapphic drama, and then I started having different experiences in my personal life. I was diagnosed with Lyme disease [in early 2023] and went through a really intense healing journey which allowed me to pause. I started having so many questions about my career and my purpose. I think through allowing myself to ask those deeper questions about this fixed dream I thought I would always be chasing, my heart opened in a way I wasn’t expecting, and I fell in love with a boy.
What exactly was that “fixed dream”?
Just the childhood dream of being the biggest pop star in the world. Being an artist that gets to stand up on a stage and share my heart and my feelings with the world…. And I’ve gotten to achieve that in so many ways. When I started going through all the things I was going through last year, I started to question … if I wasn’t singing about creating all this chaos and drama in my life, would anybody want to hear from me? Would anybody still be there, would anybody still love me if they really knew me now?
Have the assumptions people made up until this point about you bothered you?
I think people have experienced me as what I’ve shared with them, you know? All of my romantic relationships over the last 10 years have been with women. And it’s what I’ve written my music about. Through this larger-than-life character that Fletcher became, I feel like there wasn’t a lot of room for the parts of me that weren’t wild and crazy and aching. There were other parts of me that, as I’ve gone through this healing journey, I’ve felt haven’t been fully brought to life. I’m a queer woman. I’ve always been queer. I will always be queer. My identity is not shifting and it’s not changing. My community is not changing. But I’ve had these new experiences that I wanted to let people in on and give them a chance to know me now.
How gradually did your life change? When we talked early last year, you had already become more measured with certain things. A water between each margarita, that type of thing.
I think it’s been gradual. I had so many different eras throughout my career. In between all of them, there was love, but there was also my toxic “Becky’s So Hot” era. Then there was [In Search of the Antidote] and going on this deeper health journey and learning so much about myself. I feel like it’s been gradual, but…. My last tour was just so hard for me. It was really painful for me. I thought that people didn’t know the most current version of me. I thought that Cari was getting lost in this larger persona.
Is there any part of you that is scared of how people are going to react to a song like “Boy”?
Oh my gosh, yeah. I’m terrified. It’s so scary to share your truth, you know. My career launched with a song called “Wasted Youth” in my early twenties about falling in love with a girl. Here I am, 10 years later at the start of my thirties, with a song about falling in love with a boy. Through this entire time, all I’ve expressed…. My deepest desire for people was for them to boldly and unapologetically be themselves. And I have to walk that walk. If that’s what I’ve been preaching to my fans who I love so much this whole time, then I have to give myself that same grace. Otherwise, what the fuck is the point?
I understand that my love life is not the most important thing in global news in the world, especially within the queer community. Trans people’s existence right now is being threatened and their rights are being threatened at every angle. There’s a lot more important things to put attention and energy and love to. But at the same time, even through the fear that I have, the commitment to being myself no matter what is where my heart will always lay. It’s my north star that I have to just run towards.
Has your thinking on your identity shifted at all?
I’m so proud to be queer. That’s not something that’s shifted. There’s so many other components to me, aside from my queerness. I’m so fortunate to even be lifted up by the community the way that I have been all of these years. I’m a queer woman, that’s not changing…. I’m so lucky I’ve gotten to experience so much magic in this life because of my openness and my curiosity. For me it’s always been this living, breathing expression. It doesn’t shift or evolve for everyone. But for me, it’s always been this living, breathing thing.
What kind of support system are you leaning on these days?
I have my family and my friends who love me so much and I have people who love on me through every single season. I know there will be people that feel however they’re going to feel. That’s OK. I’m OK with that. I could have buried this song somewhere in the soundtrack in the larger context of this album. I chose to lead with it first. That’s because I knew that it was something that my fans, and the people who have supported me all these years, would care about. I didn’t want there to be any veil between me and my truth. It’s something that I’m willing to talk about. I have cycled through every emotion through the making of this album. I have cycled through tears, and grief, and guilt, and shame, and fear, and excitement and joy. It is an embodiment of the human experience.
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Are there other revelations on this album that you hope fans pay attention to?
My biggest hope is for everybody to be free to be themselves and to love themselves and to express themselves. It’s scary to share new discoveries about yourself. This album, and “Boy,” is really a permission slip for me to be myself. And for me to love and express myself. I just want it to be a permission slip, you know. I’m stepping into this bravery even if I’m scared, in hopes that other people are able to do that in their own lives. Whatever evolution in your life, whatever doesn’t fill your cup anymore — a relationship, or a job, or some version of you that evolved and wants to come through. Fuck it. Life is way too fucking short. Truly. To do anything else. At the end of the day, even if everybody hated me, I’m still myself.
If you knew how everything would play out — who you would meet last year — would you do anything differently?
No. There’s nothing that I would rewrite. There’s nothing that I would change about any of my journey. I love all of the women that I have been and the woman that I am becoming. I would never rewrite history. It all happened exactly the way that it was meant to. I celebrate it all.
