KATSEYE on 'Gnarly' Reactions, New Song 'Gabriela,' and Finding Their Personal Styles

It’s a quiet Tuesday morning in Malibu, the sun beaming through the windows of a beach house tucked between picturesque hills. Things are peaceful until Lara Raj of KATSEYE bursts in early to the group’s photo shoot for this cover story. She arrives first, which may have something to do with the speeding ticket (her very first) that she got on the commute over. Yes, she drove herself. As Lara retells the story, she says with a grin, “Isn't it kind of iconic?”

That phrase could describe the month KATSEYE has been having. Following the release of “Gnarly,” the polarizing first single off their forthcoming EP Beautiful Chaos, KATSEYE has been everywhere: TikTok FYPs, Korean music shows, and performing at an Urban Outfitters pop-up in Manhattan. The song, written by envelope-pushing hyperpop songwriter Alice Longyu Gao, and its music video faced immediate backlash from fans, but then something, well, kind of iconic happened. People kept listening.

“It's sort of good when people so strongly dislike something,” Lara tells Teen Vogue. “Because I think it just shows that it makes people feel something strong, whether that's dislike or they really like it.” Sophia Laforteza reveals that the group was similarly hesitant when they listened to the demo. “We screamed,” Yoonchae Jeung says, but they knew they would make it their own.

For both KATSEYE and listeners, the performance was key. In it, KATSEYE members Sophia Laforteza, Manon Bannerman, Daniela Avanzini, Lara Raj, Megan Skiendiel, and Yoonchae Jeung are a whirlwind of organized chaos, gracefully moving through rambunctious choreography with animated facial expressions and decked-out nails. The vision coalesced. Everything made sense. A week after its release, KATSEYE had nabbed their first Billboard Hot 100 hit.

But the KATSEYE members trickling in one by one to their Teen Vogue cover shoot don’t know that yet. The girls take over a house in Malibu, our set for the day, with the hope of capturing the camaraderie and comfort they share at their actual house in LA, where all six live together.

The once-calm atmosphere is shattered with a vibe best described as high energy as the group greets each other and splinters off for glam and solo shots. The hectic day is seen in snapshots: Daniela shrieks when she sees a lizard that had wandered onto the back patio, then pauses to realize that “it’s kind of cute.” (She then guides the lizard back to the wilderness, ballet flats clacking with every step.) Lara, Manon, and Sophia giggle through their own mini photo shoot that quickly devolves into them taking silly photos of each other. At one point, Megan lounges on a sparkly pink inflatable Funboy chair, taking in the California sun. Meanwhile, Yoonchae queues up old-school Maroon 5 to bring life back to the set during an afternoon slump.

On set, each member is fully themselves, bringing a unique kind of energy that just works when it all comes together. When we get to the final shot, the cover, all six members can’t help but get lost in the Britney Spears track playing on the speakers, dancing and singing along in between poses. In that photo, KATSEYE certainly looks the part of the powerhouse pop group that they are. But their true strength is in their individuality, the way they manage to showcase their unique personalities through the veneer of the group. It’s that superpower that has entranced their fanbase, called EYEKONS, and cemented their star status.

That makes it seem like it all comes easily. It’s true their rise to fame was fast.

The group formed via a 2023 competition show (often called a survival program in South Korea) akin to One Direction's rise from The X Factor or TWICE out of Sixteen. The Debut: Dream Academy was created by K-pop company HYBE and Universal Music Group’s Geffen to form a global girl group; thousands of girls from around the world auditioned, and then the top 20 completed challenges and training in dance, vocals, and overall performance to earn a spot in the final six-member lineup (voted on by fans).

KATSEYE made their first year together count with singles “Debut” and “Touch.” This April, the group’s long-awaited comeback, “Gnarly,” has been infectious, pulling in even the harshest critics after a few listens. They’ve performed on major stages like Jingle Ball, and this summer will play Lollapalooza and Summer Sonic. They’ve also carved out their space in fashion, earning collaborations with Coach and Fendi. Equally as viral as their music and choreography, their chaotic moments on vlogs and interviews have permeated social media, pulling in more and more fans.

But with their survival program, Netflix documentary Pop Star Academy, and quick ascent to fame, the group has been subject to all the typical qualms about women with success, times six. There have been questions about how much talent they have, how hard they work, and whether they actually like each other. Detractors have said the group is little more than a collection of pretty faces. But the members show up, improving their skills with every comeback, putting hours into practice, and trolling haters with TikToks. The negativity is all just noise.

“We learned that's going to be a part of the position that we're in,” Sophia says. “We're always told by our team [that] if you're a trendsetter or if you have this influence, a lot of the things that you're going to bring into the world, people aren't going to understand from the beginning.”

KATSEYE knows their magic lies in their authenticity, both individually and together, from their personal style, to their makeup, to how they’ve been shaped by their loved ones and varying cultural backgrounds. Often, that individuality comes in the form of how they look, but it’s really about how they feel.

“What resonated with the people so much about our visuals is how much we choose to enhance it and stay true to ourselves,” Sophia says. “As much as we love to try new things, every single one of us is true to ourselves, and we always make sure that we're confident and we feel good. I think that's what makes whatever you put on make others feel like they're going to feel the impact and the intention.”

For KATSEYE, beauty is individuality, and it’s helping the group propel itself forward, both on the world stage and at home.

For the leader of KATSEYE, 22-year-old Sophia Laforteza, much of her inspiration comes from her Filipino heritage. She says it’s in the way she dresses, carries the flag whenever she can, and expresses herself. “I want to be somebody who will never hide the fact that I'm Filipino,” she says. “I want to be loud about it … It means a lot when somebody embraces their culture, especially their Philippine culture and their heritage.”

As a child, she found joy in seeing Nicole Scherzinger and Vanessa Hudgens rep the country, and more recently, Olivia Rodrigo. But perhaps the most influential Filipino talent in her life was her very own mother, Carla Guevara-Laforteza, a theater star who has performed on stages across the world. As her daughter, Sophia might have had some help in her pursuit of fame, but she contests the assumption that everything was handed to her by her mother. “My mom is not a teacher,” she says. “She's not a teacher, but I tagged along for everything. She would take me to rehearsal. I would just sit there and observe. She trained me to be a visual learner.”

“I feel like she made me very reliant on myself, and it shows how I can overcome things on my own, and it made me have a lot of confidence in myself as well,” she adds. “If I really couldn't figure something out and I came up to her, ‘I really can't do this,’ then she would help me out.”

This dynamic influenced many of Sophia’s habits and her leadership skills, from the tea she drinks to the baby cologne she uses instead of a daily perfume. If her mom had such an impact on her, Sophia now has a deep influence across the globe. Her fans clamour over her always-glossed lips, but her signature look has roots in childhood. “I was just hanging out with my little cousin who lives here in LA, and I was doing my makeup,” she says. Sophia offered her four-year-old cousin some lip gloss. “She would just keep looking at the mirror and smiling, like, ‘So shiny, so shiny.’” Sophia realized she feels the same way: “Genuinely, the reason why I love wearing lip gloss is just because it makes me feel like a little girl,” she says. “I am also on Accutane. It's so drying, and that's also why I wear so much lip gloss and so much lip balm.” The explanation is another testament to the group’s candid rapport with fans.

And in the same vein of transparency, she admits that the fans have perhaps been searching for a signature gloss in vain. “Being so for real, I don't have one specific lip gloss,” she says. “I'm literally wearing Aquaphor right now.” (She does indeed pull out a medium-size tube of Aquaphor from her bag and applies it to her lips with the backs of her knuckles like a true pro.) In the end, it’s not the product that matters, she says. “It's the confidence, you know?”

Experimenting with products and looks is what earned 22-year-old Manon Bannerman the confidence she’s now known for, but it took a long time to build up that sense of self. “Growing up in Switzerland, I always looked very different,” Manon, who has Ghanaian, Swiss, and Italian heritage, says. “Mostly all my life, I was the only Black girl in class and one of the only Black girls in the school. It was a struggle for me to embrace that [identity], and I got a lot of mean comments, especially in elementary school, about my hair. So I would only wear it in a bun, and I didn't really know how to take care of it that well.”

After being made fun of for her hair, Manon says she began to do her own braids. “I started to braid my own hair because getting it braided in Switzerland is really expensive, and I couldn't afford that,” she says, noting that she learned how on YouTube. “I would just braid my hair and try out different things. And in the beginning, I would literally sit in front of the mirror for like 14 hours braiding my hair. It looked really bad back then, but now I can braid my own hair.”

She’s gotten so good at it that Manon offers tips on social media, fostering a community of EYEKONS who love seeing her braids. “It warms my heart and almost heals my inner child,” Manon says. She also loves the interest in another cultural look she sports, her waist beads that she picked up while visiting a flea market at one of her father’s favorite spots in Ghana six years ago. “I was standing there for so long and looking at all of them, and I just fell in love.”

“It makes people curious, and I feel like it's always a great conversation starter too,” she says, adding that she loves to educate people on the rich history of the country. The beads connect Manon to her roots, but she’s adopted a modern twist, too: “Old-school women in Ghana would not show [their waist beads]; only their husbands could see them,” she says. “But I'm a very modern girl, so it's more about embracing it, and I think it looks cute. A cute part of my culture that I like to share.”

It’s these beauty practices that have given Manon the confidence that helped her earn a spot in KATSEYE, but she’s also experienced that confidence being used against her. Starting with less experience in music and dance, and even less time to train than the other contestants, Manon was frequently accused of being given a spot in the group because of her looks or her already built-up social media following. “It feels like a backhanded compliment,” she says. “Yeah, you're calling me pretty, but you can't be pretty and just get everywhere. You know what I mean? Otherwise, a lot of people would be places, but it's really about the hard work that you put in.”

Over the years, however, Manon has built up a tolerance for her detractors. “Honestly, I'm finally at a point where I can say it doesn't affect me anymore. But for a while, it felt like such a knife in the heart, like a stab, because I feel like that comment just discredits the hard work I've been putting in.”

Daniela Avanzini, 20, also had a hair journey that resulted in her better understanding her cultural roots. A longtime bottle blonde, Daniela was encouraged by the Dream Academy team to dye her hair back to her natural brunette, which she was told would make her look younger. Daniela wasn’t thrilled about the change, but eventually she got used to her dark hair — and as soon as she got used to it, she was told to go blonde again. “I was like, ‘Okay, you got to be freaking kidding me,’” she says. “But I was happy because I missed my blonde.”

That’s when her hair started falling out. “My hair used to be so, so, so long, down to my butt, literally, and then the bleach killed it,” Daniela says. Her hair was breaking and shedding because of the dye damage, and it forced her to go back to her natural color. In the end, losing her hair is what made Daniela embrace her natural beauty and realize the importance of that. Leaning into her Latin roots is something she's been making an effort to do since she saw how much representation mattered to Dream Academy viewers.

“I would speak Spanish all the time [growing up in Atlanta], and I grew up in that culture at home,” she says. As she began to embrace her heritage while campaigning for The Debut: Dream Academy, some commenters would debate over whether she’s truly a Latina since she was born in Georgia, not Latin America. “My mom's entire side is all Cuban. I've been to Cuba many, many, many times, and I'm just so deep into the culture and know so, so much. It's in my blood, and it is just a big, big part of who I am. I'm not going to let anybody take that away from me because that's just how I grew up. Without that, I don't know what I would be.”

Dancing is also in her blood. She’s been onstage since she was four years old, when she would question her mom’s ability to do stage makeup. “I remember I went on America's Got Talent [when I was seven], and my mom would do my makeup,” Daniela says. “She would always give me this crazy nose contour and this crazy black eye, and just all stage makeup.”

At that age, she hated stage makeup, but got so used to it that makeup didn’t excite her much in her daily life. Being in a house full of girls for Dream Academy and then KATSEYE helped reignite her love for it. And now that she’s borrowed a few tricks from her mom’s routine and implemented them into her own, she’s had a change of heart: “As I grew up, I learned that my mother was always right about my makeup. She ate it up. I would look at myself in the mirror, and I'd be like, This is horrible. And then I would go onstage and see myself after, on TV, and I'd be like, ‘Dang, I look good.’”

From her brunette hair to using her mom’s makeup tips, Daniela is keeping in touch with her culture in so many ways as she navigates the sometimes murky waters of fame. So, it’s somewhat of a full circle moment that KATSEYE’s newest single, “Gabriela,” features Daniela singing in Spanish in an angelic falsetto. “The dance for the Spanish section, it's so pretty,” she says. “There's a circle of all the girls, and I'm in the center, and all the girls are doing floor work with their legs, and it just looks so pretty. And I get to have my little moment in the center singing my Spanish.”

“Growing up in America, being brown is really not easy at all,” 19-year-old Lara Raj says, explaining why she now unapologetically represents her Indian culture onstage. “And the jokes, the stereotypes, it was always such a thing. I feel like this has probably been the most important thing to me forever because this was also a big reason why I wanted to be an artist and be a pop star.”

Though she faced racism growing up in Dallas, Texas, Lara says that visiting India and moving to New York helped her realize just how much she had to be proud of. “I realized how valuable and deep my culture is, and people sometimes still don't see it as a cool thing,” says Lara, who was born in Connecticut and spent much of her childhood in Texas before attending New York City’s famed LaGuardia High School. That’s when she went on a mission to use representation as a way to show others how cool her culture is. “I really wanted to make something like the Ohm necklace or the bindi into a fashion statement and something that people could see as, ‘Whoa, that's so sick!’ and, ‘That's so fire!’ And other brown girls, they want to wear it too, as a thing. It's not something to get made fun of for. Because I always got made fun of for it, I really want to change that.” Lara even brought her own bindis to the set, matching them to her outfits.

Much of Lara’s style is influenced by her culture, and much of it is also inherited. She describes her whole family, including her businessman father, as extra and extravagant. Her mother, a Bollywood dance teacher and chef, helped pique her interest in style at an early age. “My mom loves to wear her traditional wedding jewelry with American clothes, which I always thought was so cool growing up,” she says. “And my friends would always be like, ‘Oh, your mom's so hot,’” she adds with a laugh. “If I was talking to a boy, he would always be talking about my mom.”

Her older sister, Rhea, who is also a singer, influenced her style, too. “My sister's always wearing chains and big earrings altogether, which I love,” Lara says. Now, the duo works together on the world stage: Rhea brings Lara into studio sessions, asking for her thoughts on tracks and having her do background vocals. In return, Rhea has taught Lara how to produce and write music, which Lara says is her biggest passion.

Despite Lara's boldness and confidence, there are things that she's still figuring out. Case in point: The young star is working out how her queer identity informs her style. In March, Lara took to the idol-fan messaging app Weverse and came out to fans, calling herself “half fruitcake.” And in May, she accepted the Blooming Impact Award from the Los Angeles LGBT Center. It’s a rare and bold move for someone in the K-pop world, where any discussions of dating, let alone same-sex relationships, are typically taboo.

But Lara’s doubling down on her choice, speaking even more openly and candidly now. She started to experiment with style to look more “masc” when she was 14, which led to some pre-debut photos and videos that fans would go on to discover of her “trolling” and “trying so hard." “It was not the vibe,” she admits in reflection.

“I always knew that I like girls, always. But I feel like I'm so straight-looking in a way, and I wanted to look more gay because I wanted girls to know that I like girls,” Lara says, struggling with an age-old femme problem. “It was so hard for me to pull girls because they just wouldn't know.”

Now, Lara is getting “a little bit more comfortable” expressing some masculinity through her style, and she’s finding joy in the experimentation. “Some days I love to be super feminine and I love to show a bunch of skin and really be super girly,” she says. “And then some days I love to be more masculine, baggy clothes, and really have my tattoos out.”

Megan Skiendiel, 19, is also in a phase of experimentation. She’s growing up in the public eye, figuring out who she is as a person, and with that comes quite a bit of playing with her style — and it feels sort of scary. “I don't even really truly know who I am yet,” Megan says. “That's a big reason why I'm still experimenting with everything, like my style, my hair, my makeup. It's fun, but at the same time, it is scary just knowing that everyone's watching. And especially me, I struggle with anxiety, so I'm like, ‘Oh, I wonder if people like this or not.’”

That self-doubt was exacerbated by comparison. Megan came to Los Angeles when she was a kid, spending time between her home in Honolulu and LA, where she was training to be a star. Being in the entertainment industry, Megan felt she was always surrounded by people who were “cooler,” something she thought was validated by their high follower count on social media. “I would look at a post [and think], Why am I not getting as much attention as this other person?” she says.

After spending a while dulling her energy to fit in when she was younger, she says she felt fake and couldn’t continue with it. With the help of therapy and her mom, she began to live “very raw and authentic” to herself, even if she’s still figuring out exactly who she is. “It did scare a lot of people away at first,” she reveals.” And some of the friends that were only friends with me because I did everything to fit in for them, obviously we had falling outs and everything, but I really found my people that supported me through anything and everything.”

One of those people is fellow KATSEYE member Sophia, whom she met when she went on Dream Academy at 15. Sophia says of Megan’s journey: “I've known that girl since she was 15, and she's 19 now. She's actually growing up before my eyes, and it's insane. It's crazy to know that we're growing up together, and I get to hear about experiences that she goes through.”

Now Megan is surrounded by the whole group, who seem to know her very well, from the way they react to her list of “hear me outs” (the cinnamon stick from Apple Jacks commercials and Danny Phantom) to how they encourage her to embrace her heritage. Representing her Hawaiian and Chinese background is “her signature.” “It's my signature to the point that Sophia gifted me a jade bracelet for my birthday,” she says, smiling. “I always make sure I have some kind of jade or gold, Chinese gold, on me.”

Megan tries to incorporate the color red, a symbol of good luck in Chinese culture, into her look whenever she can. And she always embraces her roots when she reaches a new achievement. “With any celebration, I always get a lei,” she says of the floral garlands that accented her childhood in Honolulu. “Sometimes they stack so many leis, you can't even see above your neck.”

Though she’s clearly making progress, the journey of self-discovery continues for Megan, and she sees pop stardom as an opportunity to further become her authentic self. “It's really fun because it's nice to figure out what I like and who I want to be and who I am,” she says. “It's really nice experimenting with different makeup or different hairstyles. It's always so cool because I'm like, ‘Oh, I like this. Oh, I don't like this.’ So when I finally know 100% who I am, I'll know exactly what I like and what I want.”

KATSEYE has also given 17-year-old Yoonchae Jeung an opportunity to learn more about herself and the world, with the help of the older members. She may be one of the more soft-spoken in the group, but when the youngest is ready to speak, everyone falls quiet, helping her find the right words and making sure her voice is heard.

It’s definitely heard in “Gnarly,” from her rambunctious introduction to her profanities. “I love how we have Yoonchae literally yelling, ‘F*cking gnarly,’” Sophia says, referring to the third verse. “She literally [says it] with her chest. She went for it.”

The stark difference between these sides of Yoonchae is only emphasized by the members’ excitement, which is so palpable, when they reveal their name for her alter ego: C*ntchae. “I remember I was in the recording room and the producer wanted me to act just like a different person, and I just screamed at that microphone,” Yoonchae explains. “I was just acting, and it felt good. I liked it.” (“We [previously] weren't allowed to say the word c*nt, so we would have to be like, ‘Oh, we have this nickname for Yoonchae, but we can't say it.’ So now we can,” Lara says.)

Ever since she first became a trainee at 12 in South Korea, Yoonchae has had a willingness to go the extra mile. She would dress for the part, even if she didn’t know how to. “I tried to wear, like a trainee, really cute pants and clothes, and it wasn't really cute at the time,” she says, laughing. “A year later, I started to do makeup for the evaluation stuff, and I learned makeup from my older sister and on YouTube.”

Yoonchae's interest in fashion, hair, and makeup continues to grow. She’s still experimenting with new looks, learning online and from the other members, but there are a few things she already knows she loves and thinks others will too. Representing HYBE’s home base, South Korea, in this global girl group, she strives to share K-pop songs, Korean food, and K-beauty with EYEKONS.

When Yoonchae hesitates to think of her signature style, her members are quick to help her, calling out dolly makeup, aegyo sal, and blush. “In Korea recently, they've been trying new blush color shades, or a spot on the cheek here, just here, not going under,” she says, pointing to the area under her eye. “Just a small spot. That was trending in Korea a little bit, and I really liked that. So, I still use that sometimes.”

While she bashfully talks about stocking up on “cute,” “fruity” blush colors while she’s in Seoul to share with the world, Yoonchae’s thoughtful and intentional as she reflects on what the members have shared with her: “When I was living in Korea, I didn't really know about things outside of Korea, outside of my life. After I came here, I started to know about so many cultures and so many thoughts because [the members] also came from different cultures. I've been learning English more from living together, and being confident,” she adds. “They always hype me up.”

Bringing their unique backgrounds, styles, and dreams with them, the six young women form a group that simultaneously offers a sense of familiarity and newness to fans who are often othered by media. “You can clearly see that each of us has a different vibe going on, a different aesthetic,” Sophia says. “Yet, when you see us all collectively together, it makes sense. There's that beautiful blend of it, and that's why it's so hard to put into words what it is. But when you see all of it together, it's just like, ‘That's KATSEYE!’”

Core to KATSEYE is their infectiously fun dynamic, one that even their own company couldn’t anticipate. “I feel like we all have a really hard time taking things seriously,” Lara says.

Sophia adds, “I was telling you all, if we are at some kind of serious [event], oh my God, we're going to be cooked. We cannot look each other in the eye because we are literally the type of people who’ll be like, ‘I can't!’” “We're supposed to speak at the Teen Vogue Summit, right?” Manon reminds the group, sending them into another fit of laughter. “Apologies in advance,” Sophia says.

They know some people may think their goofiness and chemistry are for the cameras, but the members say it comes naturally. “I don't think the fans would like us if we acted like we're someone else. We're just honestly 100% who we actually are whenever we are anywhere,” Manon says. Lara adds, “I also wouldn't want to do this if I couldn't [be myself]. It feels so weird to put on an inauthentic self. I feel like that's also what's so exciting about being an artist and having fans and people know who you are. They know who you are, not a version of you.”

Lara says “Gnarly” has allowed the group to be more “genuine,” “raw,” and “extra,” with the company seemingly encouraging them to embrace chaos — and crucially, not minding if they curse. “I think our team just got tired of us,” Manon says, reflecting on the leniency of this era. “They're like, ‘Just let them. Just let them.’”

Aside from their beloved nickname for Yoonchae’s alter ego, what does the truly unfiltered KATSEYE entail? Rehearsals are when they truly let loose, forcing them to find fun in the midst of hours of training. They make blanket forts, use their own secret language, and now, are mastering their telepathy, which they say they’ve already developed from spending so much time together. At home, they may branch off for their own leisure time, but when they catch each other in their personal time, it’s still fair game.

“Sometimes, I have my moments where I feel like my life is a movie, and then I put on classical music and write love letters,” Manon says, talking about her nighttime routine. “I caught you one time,” Sophia adds. “She was literally in her bed, and then she was posing really cute, and the classical music was playing, and then she was giggling and writing a love letter.” “I'm such a romantic. I love romanticizing life,” Manon explains, giggling again. “She put lipstick on and was kissing the letter too,” Sophia says, which jogs Daniela’s memory. “Oh, that love letter.”

“It failed, by the way,” Manon reveals. The group responds in unison, “D*mn.” And when she goes on to explain that the recipient returned it to her, a chorus of screams erupts. “I think we're so busy, so sometimes there's not a lot of time to really have relationships with people, and I feel like it was just not the right time with that person,” Manon says, reassuring the group that it was mutual. “I was not ready for that person.” But, she promises she’ll keep writing love letters, though perhaps just to EYEKONS for now.

Fitting all these different experiences, backgrounds, tastes, and personalities in one group without dimming anyone’s light is the key to KATSEYE. Being global means people of various backgrounds can see themselves in one of the members, but allowing the members to be so open and honest means everyone can feel a little bit of themselves in all of them, regardless of where they're from.

The ongoing journey, which has taken them from the cutesy aesthetics of “Touch” to the maximalism of “Gnarly,” is part of the fun, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first. The boisterous track is different, the lyrics demand attention, whether good or bad, the dance has been likened to Phineas & Ferb, and it’s all accented by visuals of a slimy green goo. It’s inescapable on TikTok, and soon enough, you find yourself humming it on an otherwise mundane commute to school or work. You might even find yourself trying to do the dance.

“That's the whole point,” Daniela says. “I think that we all have an idea of what we want us to go for, but the point is that it's always changing and it's this big mess, and with each era it changes and it develops. Definitely for this era, it's edgy and it's colorful and shows our grit and even more masculinity, because SIS was so feminine. So for right now, that's what our vibe is.”

“I think one of the beauties of KATSEYE is that we're so versatile and we want to be versatile with our music too,” Manon says. Like “Gnarly,” the upcoming “Gabriela,” a Latin-inspired song lamenting losing a significant other to someone else (think: a modern-day “Jolene”), is quite different from the group’s previous work and holds meanings open to the listener's interpretation. So, who is “Gabriela,” according to the members? She could be “an op," according to Lara. Manon can’t decide and switches between “Not a girl’s girl” and “the b*tch that had a lot to say about me in the press the other day. Miley, what’s good?” On a more serious note, Sophia says, “It's a play on confidence and on competition, and it's just a play on narrow vision.”

Similarly, there are multiple ways to deal with a Gabriela. Lara, who says she’s dealt with one before, says she chose not to entertain them with a response back then, letting the beef stay one-sided. Now that she’s older, she’s a little more confrontational. Manon suggests killing them with kindness, but also, “If your partner doesn't make you feel secure or makes you feel like you do need to worry about potential other Gabrielas or Gabrielos, maybe you are dating the Gabriela or Gabrielo.”

One thing’s for certain, per Daniela, Gabriela is not any of the members. Despite what the rumors might say, the girls reassure us that none of them hate each other. Instead, “Gabriela” is a commentary on that expectation of their dynamic. “We are playing into the whole thing where we're competing with each other because the [solo stans] are trying to pit us against each other all the time. It's kind of us poking fun at that, where we're telling each other, ‘Hands off! This is my thing,’” Sophia says. “We can't do our thing without the other person. It's six or nothing.”

“It's drama. It's entertaining,” Manon says. “People are always going to come up with random stuff. This is so cliché, but people really do love to pit girls against each other. It really is such a thing.” They don’t sugarcoat it either. They do fight sometimes. As they finish each other’s sentences, the members tell us about the time Manon and Lara got in their biggest fight before a Jingle Ball performance. “It was so stupid, and it was because we were fighting over who was going to sit in the front seat of the Uber,” Manon says. “We were beefing,” Lara says. “We were not talking.” “It was dirty looks,” Manon reminds her. “And then,” Lara says, “she just looks at me during ‘My Way,’ and we just laughed, and then we hugged, and we were like, ‘What the…? What are we doing?’ It was so stupid.”

They blame it on a number of things: the early morning, cold weather, and being hangry. “We're just girls and we spend so much time [with each other],” Manon says. “And some days we have an off day, but it will be good.”

“We live with each other, so if I were to fight with Yoonchae, I walk out the door, [and] I'm going to have to walk back in because that's my room too,” Sophia jokes. “There’s no escape.”

The night before our interview, the group went to J-Hope’s concert in LA. They got ready together, borrowing each other’s clothes — part of their open-closet policy — and bumping BTS hits. Getting ready is a ritual of its own, and in their close quarters, the members cherish being able to do it together. Manon sits on the floor to do her makeup, occasionally walking to the bathroom to join Daniela, who is doing her makeup in front of the mirror over the sink. Sophia and Yoonchae sit side by side at their matching vanities, listening to music. Megan and Lara also play music while catching up and gossiping.

It’s something they’ve been doing since the very start of KATSEYE in 2023. The first time it happened, Sophia remembers, “We were all in there. We were all doing our makeup together,’” she says. “It was all six of us, and it was kind of like us still being on a high of finally like, ‘Wow, this is the group.’”

They’ve come a long way since then, learning how to express themselves on the world stage and how they gel together. With any big group, you might expect growing pains as they figure all that out. But for KATSEYE, the bond was instant: “It's definitely been a journey, and it still is a journey. There are so many factors to it, so you expect chaos. But I think what's so beautiful about it is how well we puzzle together and just how we were able to literally become sisters,” Sophia says. ”We're growing up on this journey together.”

Photographer / Associate Visuals Editor Bea Oyster