Grace Ives Admits She’s Been a Horrible Girlfriend

The Brooklyn artist’s latest album Girlfriend, released in March, is a series of confessionals that hold nothing back

Despite having cleaned up, Grace Ives is not afraid to admit that her third and latest album, Girlfriend, originated from a self-declared crash out. 

She’s been public about hitting rock bottom after the release of her 2022 album Janky Star — a record that had music outlets buzzing, including an endorsement from Pitchfork, which dubbed it “one of the best little pop albums of the year.”

Ives swiftly disappeared after touring the album, leaving little hope for a return, until 2025. But with Girlfriend, which earned rave reviews and opening slots for mega stars Olivia Rodrigo and Robyn, she tells the world exactly where she’s been and what she’s been thinking in a series of unfiltered, powerful electropop confessionals.

From the day she released the album’s first single, “Avalanche,” in November of 2025, it became clear there was something groundbreaking about this new project. Ives was “feeling sorry not sorry for the mess” she had made, releasing everything she had been holding back in a cathartic, emotional avalanche.

Along with “Avalanche” and two other singles, “Dance With Me” and “My Mans,” Ives put out a statement in November, outlining exactly what fans were in for with the forthcoming album. Part of that statement reads:

This music is a step outside of the house. It’s ambitious in its attempt to capture my will to change … In 2023, after touring Janky Star, I hit a true rock bottom and have been finding my way out of the dark hole I dug for myself since then. I was drinking, lying and hiding. I fell down stairs; I called out sick; I stole; I was a shitty girlfriend, a bad daughter; I abandoned the few friends I had; I cried and vomited beyond bile. Gross. When I finally stopped drinking, I stopped lying. I gave up trying to control everything and let life take over. I saw my life clearly. Yes, I was miserable—my boyfriend haaaated me (valid), my friends and family were disappointed and hurt (fair), and my tailbone was F*CKED—but I actually saw my life for what it was: a disaster! I had abandoned myself, abandoned my path, abandoned music and love. I snapped out of it and made a slow-motion return to my place in the world.

With the full project out as of March 20, Ives revealed an emboldened new sound that is already proving to be the catalyst that will launch her to full-fledged stardom. For now, she’s bringing the songs to smaller stages — such as the Bluebird Theater in Denver, where I caught her at the end of April. But things are already heating up for the 31-year-old Brooklyn artist, and after the Girlfriend tour wraps up this summer, she’ll be on her way to bigger, more packed venues.

As the lights dimmed and the crowd hushed, Ives and her backing band, drummer Mikee Colet and Girlfriend’s co-producer/bassist John DeBold, pranced onstage gingerly. The setup proved relatively modest — with mutli-colored strobe lights, a fog machine and a black backdrop behind them, the musicians appeared jittery as they picked up their instruments and almost unceremoniously kicked off the show. 

The nerves quickly subsided when the crowd responded to the introductory synth beat of “Avalanche” with whoops of excitement. A giddy smile appeared on Ives’ face as she launched into the high-energy opener. That same feral joy fed each song thereafter, including slower ballads such as “Drink Up,” a dark confession of hiding an addiction, sneaking around like “a little kid” hoarding bottles in the basement. She goes so far as to call herself “a little b*tch,” ashamed of the habit she’s created.

PHOTO BY IZZY WAGNER

Ives is candid about the damage she’s done and the demons she’s releasing; she also calls herself out in the techno-pop “Trouble,” where she admits doing her lover dirty in the midst of her chaotic lifestyle. “Left you out to dry, done the worst I ever might,” she sings in the verse.

To her full-throated vulnerability, the audience responded by letting out their own hidden fears and insecurities, yelling out lyrics such as the refrain from “What If:” “It was up to me and I drank / it was up to me and I tanked.” Both on stage and in the crowd, nothing was held back.

By the time the set came to a close, the band could only scurry off stage momentarily before audience members began a raucous chant, the title of a crowd favorite, the one Girlfriend song they had yet to play: “Stupid Bitches.” They, of course, obliged, and the floor of the Bluebird Theater shook as I and the handful of others pressed up to the front of the venue leapt to our feet, reciting every word.

With Girlfriend, Ives has invited her listeners into her new world of catharsis. It’s one in which she speaks her mind, owns up to her failures and hides nothing. And in witnessing and accepting her own imperfection, she’s created her most authentic piece of art to date.