Charlotte Emma Aitchison ( AYTCH-ih-sən; born 2 August 1992), known professionally as Charli XCX, is a British singer, songwriter, and actress. She began posting songs on Myspace in 2008 before entering the London rave scene. Signing a recording contract with Asylum Records in 2010, Charli XCX released a series of singles and mixtapes in the early 2010s. In 2012, she co-wrote and was featured on Icona Pop's "I Love It", which became her first number-one song in the UK and received global success, but her debut album, True Romance (2013), failed to meet commercial expectations.
In 2014, Charli XCX was featured on Iggy Azalea's single "Fancy", which became her most streamed song and one of the year's best-selling singles worldwide. The same year, she released "Boom Clap", which became her first solo top-ten single in the US. Her second album, Sucker (2014), spawned the singles "Break the Rules" and "Doing It" featuring Rita Ora. She began working alongside producers associated with the UK collective PC Music in 2015, developing a more experimental sound and image. She released the EP Vroom Vroom in 2016 and the mixtapes Number 1 Angel and Pop 2 in 2017. Her third album, Charli (2019), produced the hit single "1999" with Troye Sivan. Her fourth album, How I'm Feeling Now (2020), was made during the COVID-19 lockdowns and received critical acclaim.
Charli XCX's fifth studio album, Crash (2022), became her first number-one album in the UK and Australia. She contributed the UK top-ten single "Speed Drive" as part of the soundtrack for the 2023 film Barbie. Her sixth album, Brat (2024), became her second UK number-one album and was named the best album of 2024 by various publications, such as Billboard and Rolling Stone. The album spawned the UK top-ten hit "Apple" and the remix album brought her second number-one song, "Guess" featuring Billie Eilish. Brat and its songs won three Grammy Awards: Best Dance Pop Recording for "Von Dutch", Best Dance/Electronic Album, and Best Recording Package. The album sparked a cultural phenomenon dubbed Brat Summer, which served as an inspiration for Aidan Zamiri's film The Moment (2026) that she co-produced and starred in. During this period, Charli XCX also began appearing in independent cinema, securing acting roles in the 2025 films Erupcja, Sacrifice, and 100 Nights of Hero, as well as the 2026 films I Want Your Sex and Faces of Death. Her seventh and eighth albums Wuthering Heights and Music, Fashion, Film were released in 2026; the former also served as the soundtrack to the film of the same name.
In addition to her solo work, Charli XCX has co-written songs for other artists, including Iggy Azalea's "Beg for It" (2014), Selena Gomez's "Same Old Love" (2015), Will.i.am's "Boys & Girls" (2016), Blondie's "Tonight" (2017), Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello's "Señorita" (2019), Sigala and Rita Ora's "You for Me" (2021), and Katseye's "Gabriela" (2025). She was awarded the ASCAP Global Impact Award in 2024 and featured on the 2024 Gold House's most impactful Asian A100 list, making her the first woman of British Indian origin to be honoured.
Charlotte Emma Aitchison was born in Cambridge, England, on 2 August 1992, the only child of nurse and flight attendant Shameera and entrepreneur and talent agent Jon Aitchison. Her mother was born into a Muslim family of Gujarati Indian descent in Uganda and moved to England after they were expelled by the Idi Amin regime. Her father is Scottish. She grew up in Start Hill, Essex, and spent weekends with her maternal grandparents in Crawley, West Sussex. She attended Bishop's Stortford College in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire. She briefly lived with a friend in Joensuu, Finland, describing it as a "frightening experience". She has spoken extensively about her difficulties at school growing up, stating that she was a "half-Indian girl with frizzy hair" among predominantly white people and that she was bullied and discriminated against for her Indian heritage.
She demonstrated an affinity for music from an early age, being interested in acts such as the Spice Girls and Britney Spears, and began writing songs at the age of 14. She took her stage name "Charli XCX" from her MSN Messenger screen name as she could not think of anything else and did not have a manager at the time. She told the Grammy Awards that she would stick with it and "not pull a Prince" (in reference to the singer changing his name to a symbol).
At 14, Aitchison persuaded her parents to grant her a loan to record her first album, 14, and in early 2008 she began posting songs from the album, as well as numerous other demos, on her official Myspace page. This caught the attention of a promoter running numerous illegal warehouse raves and parties in East London, who invited her to perform at them. She was billed on flyers under the stage name Charli XCX; "XCX" (or "kiss Charli kiss") which was her MSN Messenger display name when she was younger. Despite the illicit nature of the gigs, her parents were supportive of her career and attended several raves with her. In late 2008, while 14 was never commercially released, she released the two singles "!Franchesckaar!" and double A-side "Emelline"/"Art Bitch" under Orgy Music. She has since frequently expressed her distaste for her music of the time, going as far to call it "gimmicky dance tracks" and "fucking terrible Myspace music". At the age of 18, Charli XCX moved to London to study for a fine art degree at UCL's Slade School of Fine Art but dropped out in her second year.
In 2010, Charli XCX was signed to Asylum Records. She later described herself as being "lost". In an interview with The Guardian, Charli XCX said, "I was still in school. I'd just come out of this weird rave scene, and I wasn't really sure what to make of that. And, when I got signed, I hated pop music; I wanted to make bad rap music. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what I liked. Even though I was signed, I was still figuring it out." She eventually flew to Los Angeles to meet producers and found it "wasn't working out for me" until she met with American producer Ariel Rechtshaid. They had a two-hour session and wrote the song "Stay Away". She stated that was "when things started to come together". Early in 2011, she was featured on the Alex Metric single "End of the World". She left during the second year of her degree course at the Slade School of Fine Art to focus on her music career. In May and November 2011, she released the singles "Stay Away" and "Nuclear Seasons" respectively, and gained attention from music website Pitchfork, where she earned "Best New Track" accolades for both; the former was eventually named to the site's "Best Tracks of 2011" list.
2012–2015: Breakthrough with True Romance and Sucker
In addition to Rechtshaid, she began working with Swedish producer Patrik Berger. He sent her two beats, and she quickly wrote songs for each, one of which became "I Love It" and the other of which became "You're the One". She stated she did not end up releasing "I Love It" herself as she could not reconcile it with her sound, but in 2012, Swedish duo Icona Pop re-recorded the song and released it as a single featuring her vocals. The song became an international hit, hitting number one in Charli XCX's home country and climbing to number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2013. In June, she released "You're the One" as a single from her EP of the same name, followed by her debut mixtape Heartbreaks and Earthquakes, a one-track file consisting of eight songs, including a cover of the Blood Orange song "Champagne Coast" and Odd Future's remix of "You're the One". On Halloween, she released a new song called "Cloud Aura" featuring Brooke Candy, followed by her second mixtape Super Ultra, released exclusively through her website in November. In early 2013, she released "You (Ha Ha Ha)" and announced her debut album, followed by "What I Like" in March. True Romance was released on 12 April 2013. It peaked at number 85 on the UK Albums Chart, at number five on the US Billboard Top Heatseekers, and at number 11 on the Australian Hitseekers Albums Chart. The album was received well by music critics, earning a 76/100 on Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 based on reviews from mainstream critics, indicating the album's "generally favorable reviews". In May, she released "Just Desserts", a song with Welsh singer-songwriter Marina and the Diamonds.