Addison Rae has stripped off her clothing for a very provocative pH๏τo shoot for iconic shutterbug Ellen von Unwerth.

The singer has landed on the cover of ELLE’s May 2025 Women in Music Issue. 

The looker talked to Suzy Exposito about the unexpected path that brought her from Louisiana dance studios to TikTok fame and now a successful singing career.

And her acting career is not too shabby either. Her next film is Animal Friends alongside Aubrey Plaza and Dan Levy.

‘I feel like I’ve surpᴀssed Addison Rae,’ she says. ‘It’s just Addison now.’ And she has choices: ‘I have the luxury now to say no to things I’m not interested in, or that don’t feel like me or aren’t reflective of who I am. It’s still a job, at the end of the day.;

The beauty also touched on her love life. She ‘groaned’ when asked about boyfriend of four years Omer Fedi.

‘I think all relationships in my life right now are going through a transformation in a lot of ways, whether that’s good or bad or confusing or not,’ she noted. ‘And I think it’s just a lot of self-confrontation right now in these moments, and just figuring out what I really want to do and what feels right.’

Addison Rae has stripped off her clothing for a very provocative pH๏τo shoot for iconic shutterbug Ellen von Unwerth

Rae says she loves living in Los Angeles now: ‘The world seemed so small when I lived in Louisiana. And the world feels so much bigger here.’

But it is a lot of work. 

‘Everybody is trying to survive—I’m trying to survive and live here and do all these things that I love—but I definitely have become more intentional, because I do think saying no to things opens up a door for a much better yes.’

And she has no regrets about dropping out of college to chase fame. 

She began pursuing a major in broadcast journalism, but found herself ‘struggling really hard, because it’s f**king miserable to write papers about s**t you don’t care about,’ she said.

So she dropped out of college.

‘I was like, “Wow, what am I going to do?” I really just wanted to perform. I wanted to honor the pᴀssion and desire to entertain that was inside of me, but I also didn’t want to struggle, and make my family struggle, as a result of that dream.’

Rae joined TikTok.

‘I asked my counselor, like, “What do I do?” she said. ‘And she was like, “Girl, LSU will be here forever.” So I was like, “Okay, I need to drop out.” I just had this really strong intuition and gut feeling that, as unrealistic as it seemed, I needed to do it—there’s no time like now to try and chase those dreams.’

The singer has landed on the cover of ELLE’s May 2025 Women in Music Issue

The looker talked to Suzy Exposito about the unexpected path that brought her from Louisiana dance studios to TikTok fame and now a successful singing career. And her acting career is not too shabby either. Her next film is Animal Friends alongside Aubrey Plaza and Dan Levy

‘I feel like I’ve surpᴀssed Addison Rae,’ she says. ‘It’s just Addison now’

And she has choices: ‘I have the luxury now to say no to things I’m not interested in, or that don’t feel like me or aren’t reflective of who I am. It’s still a job, at the end of the day’

On moving to LA and began pursuing every job opportunity she could get her hands on: ‘I was doing any sponsored video I could do to make money to try and make this work for myself,’ Rae shared.

 ‘That’s why I was posting so much. I was like, “There’s only one chance.” 

‘It was a big bet to make, and I knew I would hate myself if I didn’t try as hard as I could to make this happen.

‘It was an intense period of my life—there was a lot of work that went into us living there—but I also had so much fun while I was doing it all,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t going to let being cringe and posting a million videos stop me. 

‘And now that I look back at it, I don’t feel embarrᴀssed about anything I ever posted. I can appreciate that girl and say that was a girl who was going to make it happen, no matter what that meant doing.’

The beauty also touched on her love life. She ‘groaned’ when asked about boyfriend of four years Omer Fedi

‘I think all relationships in my life right now are going through a transformation in a lot of ways, whether that’s good or bad or confusing or not,’ she noted

Her family moved to LA with her to support her but now they don’t do TikTok together. ‘My family has taken a step back and become much more private,’ she notes. ‘Family is always tricky, but at the end of the day, you love them and you take the good and try to leave the bad in the past. Nobody’s perfect.’

Addison on the connection between dance and her sound: ‘Growing up as a dancer was such a natural transition into that sound,’ Rae says. ‘I was interested in how that music made you feel, and how it made your body move. I think music is mind control—it opens up this portal of energy.’

Addison on the unexpected inspiration behind her single ‘High Fashion’:

Rae’s hit ‘High Fashion’ began with a Pinterest post that made her laugh: ‘It was like, ‘F**k cocaine—let’s get high on fashion!’ she recalls. ‘It was like, ‘I don’t need your drugs.’ As in, ‘I don’t need this person’s addictive energy in my life, I’d rather have high fashion,’ Rae explains.

Addison on filming the ‘High Fashion’ video in her home state of Louisiana and always knowing she wanted to be a star: ‘It was really important for me to film in Louisiana, because I feel like it’s a reflection of the way I felt growing up and then moving to L.A.—you know, the Wizard of Oz of it all,’ Rae says. ‘I just felt like a fish out of water, in a way. 

She is proud of her new movie Animal Friends: ‘It’s definitely a 180 from everything else I’ve done,’ Rae said.

She then added, ‘And I think it’s just a lot of self-confrontation right now in these moments, and just figuring out what I really want to do and what feels right’

‘I’m really playing a character in this one. In my other projects, I’ve not really played someone much different from myself. He’s All That was pretty on the nose for my life at the time—being the influencer. And same with Thanksgiving—I was kind of playing myself.’

Fame is her destiny, she added. 

‘I always knew I wanted to be famous, to be a movie star, to be a singer—to just be a performer. That was always something I wanted—the glamour and the fashion.

‘It’s almost like I’m convincing myself in this song, like, ‘No, I don’t want this—I want the fashion, I want the childhood dreams, I want that life. Don’t forget, don’t fall in love—you’d rather get these dreams accomplished.’

Addison on making choices that reflect who she really is: ‘I have the luxury now to say no to things I’m not interested in, or that don’t feel like me or aren’t reflective of who I am. It’s still a job, at the end of the day. 

‘Everybody is trying to survive—I’m trying to survive and live here and do all these things that I love—but I definitely have become more intentional, because I do think saying no to things opens up a door for a much better yes.’