Slayyyter

Catherine Grace Garner (born September 17, 1996), known professionally as Slayyyter, is an American singer and songwriter. Known for her brash and sex-positive lyricism and electropop production, she started her career independently releasing songs through SoundCloud. Her debut mixtape, Slayyyter, was independently released in 2019. Her debut album, Troubled Paradise, was released in June 2021, and her second album, Starfucker, in September 2023. Her third album, Worst Girl in America, was released in March 2026 on Columbia Records and achieved breakout success. In addition to four solo tours, Slayyyter has toured in support of Charli XCX, Kesha, and Tove Lo.

Early life and career Early life Slayyyter is from Kirkwood, Missouri, a suburb west of St. Louis, where she has "kind of lived [her] whole life". She has gone by her middle name "Grace" since childhood. Her mother is a devout Polish American Catholic, however she was not a strict parent. Her childhood was affected by her father's alcoholism and drug addiction.

Slayyyter aspired to be a movie star, a singer, or a comedian on Saturday Night Live as a child. She took ballet and hip-hop dance lessons until high school, when her family could no longer afford them. She went to a small Catholic school in St. Louis until eighth grade. In middle school, Slayyyter and her friends performed "Push it to the Limit" by Corbin Bleu for a talent show, marking her first public performance. As a child, she would watch the I Am... World Tour and Lady Gaga Presents the Monster Ball Tour: At Madison Square Garden tour DVDs "religiously", memorizing Lady Gaga and Beyoncé's choreography.

Slayyyter later attended Kirkwood High School, where she was "offered great music classes for the first time." There, she was in an a capella choir, took voice lessons, performed concert solos, and was a member of the Kirkwood swim team. Slayyyter's favorite classes were English, film studies, and art, but she struggled with other subjects. Having grown up without money, she often felt insecure around wealthy classmates.

Slayyyter studied at the University of Missouri in Columbia for about a year. She feels it was an "expensive experiment" in which she began a career as a musician, making "'80s lo-fi pop" which she produced and edited herself out of her bedroom closet, but never published. She dropped out of college in 2016 and continued to create music while working as a hair salon receptionist in Des Peres, camming, and doing findomme work to make money. She said it was her e-girl "hustler" phase. She later said that most of her early fans were Charli XCX stan accounts. Slayyyter contacted her most frequent early collaborator, Ayesha Erotica, on Twitter, where they both developed a following. Slayyyter credits Stan Twitter users for introducing her to Erotica, discovering Erotica's music after a fan said they looked similar. The Stan Twitter success of "Mine" and the later single "Daddy AF" allowed her to leave her job as a hair salon receptionist and pursue music full time. On September 17, 2019, Slayyyter released her debut mixtape, Slayyyter, which combined dance-pop and hyperpop production.

In October 2019, Slayyyter opened for Charli XCX's Charli Live Tour, after being featured on a remix of "Click" with Charli XCX and Kim Petras. She apologized and said, "I have grown and changed so much in the past eight years and the person I am today is not who I was at age 15. Eight years is a lot of time to reflect, grow, mature and better yourself as a human being... I know that being young or uneducated about the matter also does not excuse any of these things, but please know that people do change." Slayyyter committed funds resulting from her CD and vinyl sales to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project and Black Trans Travel Fund—two charities benefitting black trans youth.

2020–2021: Troubled Paradise During the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Slayyyter was meeting with producers in Los Angeles. Unable to leave due to travel bans, she purchased an apartment in Beverly Hills, California and continued to make music during the quarantine period. On January 26, 2021 Heidi Montag confirmed via Twitter that she would be featured on a remix of the track. However, in a 2023 interview with VICE, Slayyyter confirmed the collaboration would not be released due to a "sample clearance issue", revealing that the sample was "crazy expensive to clear". In May 2024, Slayyyter said that she had tried to clear the sample for release but the song's original writers would not comply with her team. On January 21, 2021, she announced her debut studio album, Troubled Paradise, which was set to be released on June 11. The third single from the album, "Troubled Paradise" released along with its music video the next day. From February to May 2021, she released the singles "Clouds", "Cowboys", and "Over This!" ahead of the album.

Troubled Paradise was released on June 11, 2021, through Fader Label. Pitchforks Ashley Bardhan called the project "vibrant and ridiculous". Slayyyter promoted the album by releasing Vevo Live performances for the tracks 'Letters' and 'Troubled Paradise'. On November 5, 2021, she released the standalone single "Stupid Boy", a dance-pop song featuring Big Freedia. Later in 2021, she released Inferno Euphoria, an EP of remixes from Troubled Paradise.

2022–2025: Starfucker and tour Slayyyter performing at The Novo in Downtown Los Angeles, November 2023On October 4, 2022, Tove Lo announced that Slayyyter would be the opening act on the North American leg of Tove Lo's Dirt Femme Tour. Slayyyter also teased new music in her own announcement. On June 9, 2023, Slayyyter released the synth-pop single "Out of Time", which Nylon called a "sleek" return after Troubled Paradise. On July 20, she announced her second studio album, Starfucker, "Out of Time" serving as its lead single. The next day, the album's second single "Miss Belladonna" came out. The music video for the single was released on August 17, and the single was released on August 18. and dance-pop style of the album deviated from the hyperpop sound of her previous releases. It was her first charting album, debuting at No. 17 on Billboard Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart and reached No. 10. The album was positive reviewed by critics, with several considering it one of 2023's best. Promoting the album, Slayyyter embarked on the Club Valentine Tour, 17 shows in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland beginning on October 25, 2023, in Boston and concluded on February 17, 2024, in London.

As part of Spotify's "Spotify Singles" series, Slayyyter released a cover of Lady Gaga's song "Monster" on October 17, 2023. On a separate but related occasion in early 2024, Gaga commented that she "loved" a TikTok video of Slayyyter lip-syncing to her unreleased song "Brooklyn Nights". Later in April 2026, Slayyyter said that the financial failure of the Club Valentine tour and its corresponding merchandise campaign led her to reconsider her career and begin making Worst Girl in America, intending for it to be her last studio album. In July 2024, after performing at the Melt Festival in Gräfenhainichen, Germany, she traveled to Santa Margherita Ligure and Portofino, Italy eating oysters which contained vibrio bacteria. She then had a seizure, became paralyzed from the waist down, and was transported to the hospital in an ambulance. She had a quick recovery and continued touring the next day. On September 20, 2024, she released the single "No Comma". According to Slayyyter, "No Comma" was a blueprint for the sound of future album Worst Girl in America, and was inspired by Miami culture and M.I.A.'s album Maya. The artist considered releasing "No Comma" as a part of a reloaded version of her 2019 mixtape Slayyyter. In summer 2025, after releasing the "girl power" single "Attention!" with Kesha and Rose Gray, the trio toured together on the Tits Out Tour.

2025–present: Worst Girl in America and Worst Man in America

In a July interview, Slayyyter revealed that she would be based in Brooklyn, New York instead of Los Angeles. On August 1, 2025, she released "Beat Up Chanels," the lead single from her upcoming third studio album, accompanied by a music video. On the same day, Columbia Records announced that they had signed her. The second single, "Cannibalism!," and its corresponding music video, were released on September 12, 2025. A month later, she released the album's third single and its music video, titled "Crank", on October 24, 2025. On January 13, 2026, she announced her third studio album, Worst Girl in America, alongside the release date for the album's fourth single, titled "Dance...". On February 22, 2026, she announced a fifth single and its music video, titled "Old Technology," released on February 24.

Worst Girl in America was released on March 27, 2026, as a visual album; every track was accompanied by its own music video or visualizer. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart and at No. 22 on the Billboard Hot 200, selling 27,000 equivalent units in its first week, her highest achievement during her career. Worst Girl in America was heavily inspired by 2000s and 2010s-era pop, punk, and hip-hop music, which Slayyyter called "iPod Music." Conceptually, Slayyyter sought to break away from the commercial appeal of Starfucker, instead embracing her own musical aspirations. The album was commended by critics. In April 2026, she made her debut at the 2026 Coachella festival, performing on the Mojave Stage. Her set included performances of songs from the new album, including "Crank," "Beat Up Chanels," and "St. Loser." The performance received widespread critical acclaim and drew a record-breaking crowd for its afternoon time slot, with multiple media outlets describing it as a "breakout moment" in her career. For her week 2 performance, she officially released her song "Broke Bitch Freestyle" and performed it as the opening to her set. The song was first performed as an intro to her song "Purrr" during her September 2024 Boiler Room Set in Washington, DC.

On May 19, 2026, Slayyyter made her TV debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, performing the track "Dance..." from Worst Girl in America. In June 2026, she teased a possible brother album to Worst Girl in America.

Slayyyter released the lead single from Worst Man in America, "Brand New Chanels", on July 31, 2026, accompanied by a music video. The single released nearly a year after "Beat Up Chanels", the song which it directly inverses. On the same day, Slayyyter played at the 2026 Lollapalooza festival, performing on the Bud Light stage. She garnered a crowd of over 50,000, her largest yet.

Artistry Music style and influences

Slayyyter is primarily considered a pop artist. Various sources referred to her as a hyperpop musician during her early career, but she herself says that the label does not accurately reflect her sound and she "want(s) to be seen as a pop vocalist". as well as sounding "like Charli XCX on whippets". Slayyyter cites Spears, Lady Gaga, as major musical influences and the pop stars whom she idolized the most growing up. Other artists who have influenced her musical style include Timbaland, Gwen Stefani,

During her Starfucker album cycle, Slayyyter shifted dramatically to a more mainstream and cinematic 1980s synthwave and synthpop-driven electropop and dark industrial club sound with nu-disco influences. She says her third album, Worst Girl in America, is a punk, electronic, club, and house music album with some influences from her second album, but has said that she feels like she's transitioning to an entirely new, more mature sound. She frequently collaborated with Glitchmood, an artist from the U.K. for visuals, during her early career. A cinephile, Slayyyter has expressed admiration for the work of Richard Linklater, Sean Baker, Brittany Murphy, and Brian De Palma. Uptown Girls, She previously tried to keep her real name private, going by the pseudonym Catherine Slater, which has been referenced in media as her real name, in an attempt to keep fans and press away from her family. Slayyyter was criticized by PETA in May 2026, for wearing a fox fur coat and tippet in her music video "Crank", which she justified by stating that she only wears "antique and vintage fur".

Discography

Studio albums Troubled Paradise (2021) Starfucker (2023) Worst Girl in America (2026) Worst Man in America (2026)

Mixtapes Slayyyter (2019)

Tours Headlining The Mini Tour (2019) Club Paradise Tour (2022) Club Valentine Tour (2023–2024) Worst Girl in the World Tour (2026)

Supporting Charli XCX – Charli Live Tour (2019) Tove Lo – Dirt Femme Tour (2023) Fletcher – In Search of the Antidote Tour (2024) Kesha and Scissor Sisters – The Tits Out Tour (2025)