Mae Muller: the UK’s ‘fresh-faced’ Eurovision contestant

Representing the UK at Eurovision this year is Mae Muller, a 25-year-old singer who has previously worked with Little Mix.

Following Sam Ryder’s second place achievement at last year’s contest for his song Space Man, Muller was “hand picked by BBC bosses and industry execs, who have been quietly watching her career for a number of years”, said The Sun.

The Londoner will perform her single I Wrote A Song at one of the two semi-finals on 9 and 11 May and then at the Grand Final on 13 May.

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Muller is the kind of “fresh-faced talent” with a major label signing and “years of industry-led hype behind her” that UK entries in recent years have “sorely lacked”, said the Official Charts.

But some critics aren’t convinced. “The song isn’t terrible,” wrote Alexis Petridis in The Guardian, “but nor, one suspects, would it attract the kind of attention it’s getting were it not our Eurovision entry.” Muller is “certainly better than most of our entries in recent years”, added the critic, “but whether that makes it good enough is another matter entirely”.

Whatever the outcome, after this year’s competition has come to a close “you will be hard pressed not to have come across Mae in some form”, said The Sun.

Who is she?

The singer, whose full name is Holly Mae Muller, was born in 1997 – the year that the UK last won Eurovision – and hails from Kentish Town in north London.

Her career in showbusiness started earlier than most at the age of nine, when she starred in Mika’s Grace Kelly music video.

She wrote her first song at the age of 19. “She was on a train from Cornwall to London and the wi-fi wasn’t working – so she opened the Notes app on her phone and started writing about the boy she was seeing,” said Sky News.

She signed with her manager in 2017 after being discovered on Instagram, and released her debut album, Chapter 1, two years later.

“I’ve always wanted to create music since I can remember,” she told F Word in 2018, “but I decided I was going to really take it seriously around a year ago.”

What else has she done?

Muller has “worked with some of the biggest stars in UK music”, said The Sun, including Little Mix, Aitch and American rapper Polo G. Her “massive break-out moment” happened in 2021 with the release of Better Days, a song she was featured on alongside production duo Polo G and Swedish collective Neiked, said Official Charts.

It was her first top 40 hit in the UK, peaking at number 32. In the US, the song reached number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. She later performed it on The Voice US for judges Kelly Clarkson and Ariana Grande. Now, the singer is signed to Capitol Records.

What’s to come?

There are already some exciting things on the horizon for Muller, said The Sun. She’s set to perform at several events including Brighton and Hove Pride this August, and at the Victorious Festival in Portsmouth.

“A lot of music” will be coming out, she told the Saving Grace podcast, hinting at another album.

Apart from her blossoming music career, she’s set to make her acting debut later this year in Gassed Up, an Amazon Prime action thriller.