FEATURE:
Spotlight: Revisited
Maisie Peters
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I am once more…
spotlighting the talent of the absolutely amazing Maisie Peters. I wrote about her in 2021. That was around the release of her debut album, You Signed Up for This. Peters released its follow-up, The Good Witch, in 2023. Her third studio album, Florescence, will be released on 15th May. Featuring collaborations with Marcus Mumford and Julia Michels, I love the song titles and the album cover. As a fan of Maisie Peters and her previous work, I am looking forward to her new album. The Brighton artist is one of our brightest and best musicians. You can pre-order her album here. Available on cassette, C.D. and vinyl, I know that there will be a lot of new love and attention around this artist. I am going to get to some recent interviews with Peters, as she is entering this new phase of her career. There are a couple of new articles that I want to lead to. However, it is worth heading back to 2023. An interview with Earmilk around the release of The Good Witch. If this artist is new to you then do make sure you follow her:
“Peters always finds a way to put her sunshine-laden melodies underneath lyrics that seem so simple on the surface but cut deeper with each listen. "Body Better" perfectly captures the inescapable feeling of self-deprecating comparison felt by many. "Loving you was easy, that's why it hurts now," she gently sings before laying down the truth, "The worst way to love somebody is to watch them love somebody else, and it works out."
"I wrote the song last June; essentially, it's a very honest, somewhat uncomfortable in its honesty, depiction of how I was feeling at the time," Peters shared with EARMILK in an exclusive interview. "I had been through a breakup a few months before, and I was sort of processing certain feelings and how it made me feel about myself and my body. It's a song of self-reflection, the most negative version of self-reflection when you're alone and unhappy and bitter and jealous and obsessive in your hotel room at 1 am.”
Peters is known for writing songs that hit a little too close to home, and "Body Better" is no different. She compares it to drafting a scathing text to someone and not sending it, then tweeting it out to the world nine months later. "The longer time goes on, the more you get over and get past whatever it was that you were writing about, and it becomes a different thing. The song gets disconnected from the moment." Vulnerability is a muscle that Peters has trained so often it's second nature to her. It feels effortless on each release. In an age when women are picked apart for every detail, this song feels especially poignant.
The comparison in those intricate details feels like a stab at every turn. Comparison gets to everyone. Maisie faces it in her career as much as she does in her personal life. She says, "I feel like there's a point in my career where I haven't achieved enough or fallen behind, or I'm not where I want to be, and none of those things are true, and they're all things that only you think about yourself." But the response she gets with each song she releases just cements her position. She perfectly sums up the female experience, the way that nothing is able to exist without that question of what if? Or why can't I be like her instead?
Everything an artist does will be held up to compare to another and picked a part piece by piece, but Peters has learned to drown out that noise. Whether it's in her career or her personal life, she says, "It's a fruitless exercise, it's only you who thinks those things, and I guarantee who you're comparing yourself to would do the same thing back to you in a heartbeat. Just remember that you're more than what you think you are. There's so much depth to us as women, and we're so multifaceted. There's a myriad of wonderful things about us. Don't get caught up on one aspect of yourself or one aspect of someone else that you think you're missing or that they have. Everyone's so much more than that”.
I cannot find any 2026 interviews with Maisie Peters, though I am aware this will change soon as we get closer to the release of Florescence. My Regards is a new single from this incredible artist. The Honey Pop examined the song and its video. With a growing fanbase and visuals and music which is distinct and always extraordinary, there is a lot of love and fascination around Maisie Peters. I do think that we will be talking about her years from now:
“Forget Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard—we’re craving a gender-flipped fantasy starring our pixie-cut blonde, Maisie Peters, blue-steeling in black shades like she’s guarding state secrets instead of your heart. It’s all in service of ‘My Regards,’ co-produced by Ian Fitchuk (yes, the mind behind Kacey Musgraves and Stephen Sanchez) and co-written and produced by Nick Lobel (of Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus fame), alongside Maisie herself. The track—cheeky, possessive, and gloriously self-aware—is basically a love letter that winks while it guards the door.
And honestly? There’s so much we’re obsessed with from this video-slash-single drop. The all-star creative squad. The wardrobe that could probably get its own security detail. And, of course, the soon-to-be-everywhere choreography destined to infiltrate your TikTok FYP with military precision. So let’s spot the eagle circling the nest and dive in.
Operation: Classified Poetry Is A Go
Part visual storyteller, part lover girl on steroids, bodyguard Maisie writes like someone who just caught user_fangirl09 red-handed, deep in a 2 a.m. Instagram excavation of her boyfriend’s feed and accidentally liking a photo from two years back. She’s already sketched the mission plan, neutralised the perceived threat, and done it using her weapon of choice—a glitter pen (very Taylor Swift coded, obviously).
All of it funnels into lines like, “But the problem is he’s mine, and it’s headline news,” which—fair enough—because our girl is famous and the tabloids would absolutely eat that up. The lyrics are poetic, saucy, and leave you wondering whether she’s actually serious or just being deliciously cheeky.
And honestly, in her defence, she does toss out a “‘Scuse me, sorry” in a Sussex accent between lines about her perfume (likely Giorgio Armani, given her androgynous campaign with them) being the only air he breathes, and spoiling him with hotel stays at the The Ritz London—all, of course, penned “from his bedroom.”
Assembling The Elite Unit: Mission Success Assured
The Powerpuff Girls, Totally Spies!—all the best team-ups come with an elite squad, and Maisie’s got hers on lock. Benny Drama, aka Benito Skinner, rolls in the melodrama by being an absolute heartthrob with an allegiance of fans that bodyguard Maisie would frankly have to shield him from.
Meanwhile, sneaking out the back of her Chicken Shop Date segment, Amelia Dimoldenberg steps behind the camera to direct the video, letting her genius comedy instincts run wild as Maisie and Benito awkwardly dance through the halls of Addington Palace, deep in the heart of South London. It feels like a covert-op meets a rom-com meets a TikTok fever dream—and the squad chemistry is half the fun.
Secure The Fit: Glamour Protocol Activated
With her pixie-blonde cut pinned back by two perfectly 90s clips and her lips pursed in burgundy, it’s obvious from the black shades alone that Maisie is on yet another mission: to slay. What’s so spunky about the video is that it doesn’t just play with the protector-and-protectee trope—it threads the whole subversion straight through the styling. Any hint of a femme silhouette is left on the cutting-room floor in favour of a full suit and leather gloves, all pulled together by Steph Major.
The creative aesthetic trickles out into the fans’ looks, too: an “I love you” broken up by gigantic red hearts reflects the over-the-top devotion toward Benny Drama’s character, styled by Lucy Bonner. Jake Sammis outfits Benito in that laid-back actor uniform—jeans, belt, plaid shirt, and, of course, matching shades to Maisie. It’s giving coordinated chaos, celeb crush fever, and covert-ops chic all at once.
Movement Intel: Steps Locked, Target Rhythm Acquired
Because while fangirls are busy chasing you outside, naturally, your bodyguard is inside… learning dance choreography. We see you, promotional TikTok routine, unfolding step by step like part of her training arc. And if you want to learn the moves too, don’t stress—there’s a full run-through of the choreography tucked right into the credits of the music video, practically begging you to join the mission.
Florals Under Surveillance
Our daisy-eyed girl, Maisie, is gearing up to drop Florescence, her third studio album, co-produced by Ian Fitchuck and blooming with collabs from Julia Michaels and Marcus Mumford, arriving May 15th. But don’t wilt on us just yet—while we wait for the petals to unfurl, she’s launching Before The Bloom, a mini-tour sprouting in Sydney, Australia, on March 1st at the Enmore Theatre before drifting across East Asia, Europe, the UK, the US, and Canada”.
I am going to end with an article from i-D that also looks at the incredible new single. Following last year’s You You You, Audrey Hepburn and Say My Name in Your Sleep (which appear on Florescence), this new year will offer an album and some incredible tour dates. Before playing London’s KOKO on 25th March, she has some dates in Australia and Europe. I know that London gig will be packed, as Maisie Peters is a phenomenal and hugely popular artist:
“I arrive at Addington Palace in deep South London and accidentally saunter straight into shot: Maisie Peters, the big-gun British indie-pop girl, is filming the music video for her new track “My Regards.” Dressed in a black business suit, hair slicked and clipped into place, she is in bodyguard mode. Her client? A blue-jeaned Benito Skinner who, at this moment, is being set upon by a gaggle of rabid fans. Someone shouts “Cut!” It’s Chicken Shop Date creator Amelia Dimoldenberg.
This combination of characters was Peters’ idea. A mix of people she’d never properly met before but is a big fan of, like Skinner, and acquaintances who she shares a common language with, like Dimoldenberg. The song is a sexy, country subversion of the boy-protector and girl-protected narrative. For the video, Peters originally had a different idea: “When I was writing, I very much saw it as this old country-and-Western film, with me on my horse and my boyfriend behind me,” she says. But after sending the song to Dimoldenberg, she had a different idea, inspired by one line: “Call me Kevin Costner / The way I’m guarding his body.” And so here Peters is less cowboy, more CIA.
“When Amelia had this idea, that the reason I’m so protective of him is because it’s my job, it clicked into place,” Peters says. “Then we agreed that this man in the video had to be a sex icon, and we both thought: Benito Skinner.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Sophie Scott
Skinner’s in the makeup chair getting touch-ups, looking good, he thinks, because he’s recovering from food poisoning. He’s having fun. His preparation was pretty easy. He just listened to the song 50 times. “Not having any lines is kind of explosive,” he says. “Like, it’s all in the eyes.” (For most of the video, his star persona wears sunglasses.)
“When my brain brought me Benny, I realized that adds another level to it, because I know how funny Benny is, but he’s also genuinely gorgeous,” Peter says. Dimoldenberg, understandably locked in for the day, told me later: “He was the final piece of the puzzle.” Following the creation of Chicken Shop Date and directing her first short film, she felt like she was ready to add something new to her bow. “Stepping behind the lens for my first music video has felt like a natural evolution,” she says. “I wanted this to feel playful, humorous, and in line with everything else I’ve done.”
“My Regards” is one of the early teases of Florescence, Peters’ third studio album. It was recorded after a long and manic spell of live shows, touring her last LP, The Good Witch, and doing support slots for just about every significant star on the planet (Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Conan Gray). She had been tinkering away at what would come next on that journey—she’s the kind of artist that never really stops, and reckons she’s written at least 60 songs for the album—but found herself burnt out, hitting a wall. So she canceled some shows, came home, and decided to figure things out. “I know other artists will go into an album with the title already, and a whole thesis,” she says, but she works in retrospect, making and then shaping.
Much of that shaping happened in Nashville, where she linked up with Ian Fitchuk, the Grammy winner who worked on Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour, to help bring things to life. Her writing partners this time around include Marcus Mumford and Julia Michaels, both of whom have features on the album.
Peters made her name as a pop star who was a little scorned and petty. Her past material, like “Psycho” and “Lost the Breakup,” offered opportunities for her to exorcise shitty old relationships. Each banger was a little teaspoon of salt in an ex’s morning coffee. But she’s 25 now, and Florescence feels like it’s written by someone assured and fulfilled. Even the quirkier tracks like “My Regards” are written from the POV of someone who knows they’re comfortable and loved. “While I was writing, I reminded myself that I’m a hopeful and forgiving person,” she says. “At this point in my life, I don’t have a lot of resentment towards people. I’m able to look back and see a lot of the relationships I had in a really new light. Maybe that’s growing up”.
I am going to end there. Maybe some still see her as new or rising, though it is clear that Maisie Peters is a major artist. She has performed with and won the love of artists like Taylor Swift. In May, we will get a third album from Peters, Florescence is shaping to be one of her best. The singles from the album are all terrific. Anyone who has not heard and connected with Maisie Peters needs to do so…
RIGHT now.
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