Rebecca Lucy Taylor AKA Self Esteem is one of the UK’s most exciting breakout stars of the past
decade. Emerging from cult favourite to mainstream hero in the space of five whirlwind years, she
enters 2026 as a bona fide triple threat in music, literature and acting.
2025 saw the release of her hugely acclaimed third album and debut book, both titled A Complicated
Woman and both containing all Taylor’s unmistakable thumbprints – complex thought processes
unfolding in real time, an effortless knack of exposing the feelings women are required to labour
under.
Released in April 2025, the album features some of Taylor’s strongest songwriting to date and is
propelled by a jubilant choir constructed of dozens and dozens of mostly female voices - “a
community of people. I want you to hear and feel the connection” - including close friends, her band
and collaborators. A month after its release Taylor won the Visionary Award at the Ivor Novello
Awards for her genre-defying and fearless songwriting. The album’s lead single ‘Focus Is Power’ was
chosen by the BBC to soundtrack their coverage of the Lionesses’ UEFA European Football
Championships win in July - a full circle moment coming just months after Taylor publicly announced
her ambition for the album to become montage music to mass sporting events and stadiums.
The album was followed in October by the book. Through the notes, lyrics and biting observational
prose for which Taylor has become lauded, A Complicated Woman offers itself up as a subversive
anti-Bible for any woman who has ever cracked under the weight of impossible expectation; who has
done unto others the damage that has been wrought upon her; and who has discovered deep within
herself a resilience that surprised her. It’s a cathartic scream that gets to the heart of being a woman
in the world today, and cements Taylor as one of the most exciting voices of her generation,
something reinforced by her co-curation of the London Literature Festival at the Southbank in
November.
Quite the opposite of an overnight success, Taylor spent a decade as one half of indie duo Slow Club
before adopting the pop star persona she’d always dreamed of. She released her first Self Esteem
album Compliments Please in 2019, featuring fan favourite singles ‘The Best’, ‘Girl Crush’ and more.
The breakthrough moment had come with the huge success of her empowering, truth-telling 2021
single ‘I Do This All The Time’. Self Esteem’s wildly acclaimed second album Prioritise Pleasure
quickly followed, tackling the hypocrisies and joys found in her experiences of modern day
womanhood across dating, friendship, comparison culture, self love, women’s safety and sexual
assault and much more. Prioritise Pleasure received Mercury Prize, BRIT Award, Sky Arts and NME
Award nominations, was crowned The Guardian and Sunday Times Culture’s Album of the Year, and
‘I Do This All The Time’ was also named The Guardian’s #1 song of 2021.
Gathering a passionate and vast legion of fans ever since, Taylor has appeared on The Graham
Norton Show, Celebrity Gogglebox, Friday Night Live, performed three times on Jools Holland
including the NYE Hootenanny, graced the covers of magazines from Grazia to NME to Sunday Times
Style, and is one of a handful of artists to have been playlisted across BBC Radio 1, 2 and 6 Music
simultaneously.
Having reached new heights of acclaim, Taylor has continued to grow, diversify, and create. Branching
out into the world of acting, she starred in a regular role in the Sky series Smothered, before
completing a run playing Sally Bowles in the multiple Olivier Award-winning production of 'Cabaret at
the Kit Kat Club' in London's West End. Starring alongside Jake Shears (lead singer of Scissor
Sisters) as Emcee, the pair’s time on stage was extended due to popular demand, and showcased
the sheer range of talent in Taylor’s repertoire. In March 2026 she takes on her biggest acting role yet,
playing Maggie Frisby in a revival of David Hare’s Teeth ‘n’ Smiles - a role first played by Dame Helen
Mirren at the Royal Court 50 years ago.