Katseye Is Done Following the Rules

25.06.2026, 15:17 allure.com

Katseye is hungry. Very hungry.

We’re in the middle of their two-day cover shoot for Allure at a studio in Los Angeles, where the girls all live. Ambition metaphors aside, on numerous occasions during this interview, they tell me how much they like to eat. I can vouch that the statement isn’t something they parrot to sound relatable. In full glam, the group’s members—Sophia Laforteza, 23, Daniela Avanzini, 21, Lara Raj, 20, Megan Skiendiel, 20, and Yoonchae Jeung, 18—begin to rip open bags of Takis Fuego Rolls, Miss Vickie’s jalapeño-flavored chips, and Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough Chunks before they settle into the enormous brown leather couch and adjoining chairs in the greenroom. Waiting to be snatched by their bejeweled manicured hands are even more unopened treats, all stacked on a folding table in the corner: Twix, KitKats, Pringles, Reese’s, Garden Veggie Straws. Off to the side is a lone plate of cut fruit.

It might be the never-ending pile of snacks, the constant chattering over one another, or the casual ease in which they curl up into the seating arrangements, but the girls of Katseye make it feel like we’re hanging out in the basement of a sorority house. And if you’ve ever been inside one of those, they’re not the most conducive to group interviews, especially when the occupants are five very busy pop stars. They apologize for the chaos. At one point, Megan thinks she has hives and crawls across the floor to Sophia to confirm her self-diagnosis. All of this, along with their understandably instinctual urge to check their phones, means that it takes almost 15 minutes for the group to answer my first question.

But you know what? They deserve a moment to yap and snack. In the past couple of years, Katseye has gone from an experiment to the Next Big Thing in pop: They were nominated for two Grammy Awards and, although they left empty-handed, performed at the ceremony to a room full of their peers and 14.4 million viewers and eyekons (the name for their fans) around the world. They booked Coachella, and performed back-to-back weekends with songs from their first two EPs, SIS (Soft Is Strong) and Beautiful Chaos, and their new single, “Pinky Up.” During our cover shoot, news broke that the 27 original dates of the global tour this fall for their upcoming EP, Wild, sold out within 48 hours, according to a press announcement. Just two days after the Allure shoot, the group performed at the American Music Awards and swept their categories, winning three awards in total.

Even if the choruses of “Pinky Up” or “Gnarly,” two of their most catchy, hyper-pop songs, aren’t lodged in your psyche, you’ve likely seen the young women in your social media feeds. Katseye as a group has inked contracts with Fendi, Laneige, Coach, Pandora, Lush, Glossier, and more—in fact, their most viral moment was a brand deal. Remember that jeans ad with Sydney Sweeney that sparked so much outrage for what some felt was its eugenics theme? As if to answer the internet storm, came Katseye’s Gap denim campaign where they danced to Kelis’s “Milkshake” in coordinating outfits. Suddenly, they were thrown into the center of a conversation about diversity and representation. Katseye, whose members represent Filipino, Cuban Venezuelan, Ghanaian Italian Swiss (at one time, but more on that later), Indian, Chinese Singaporean, and Korean cultures, seemed like the perfect antidote to the “good genes” discourse.

Although their plates are both literally and figuratively full at the moment, the young women arrived on time this morning except for Lara, who was at the doctor’s office to have an MRI and a cortisone shot for her back pain, a normal appointment, perhaps, in the daily life of a global pop sensation. “You're kind of required to be a superhuman for this job,” Sophia says. The girls seem to have come a long way from performing through their injuries and physical pain, though. Megan had to take three months off last year for a back injury after not taking the proper time to heal, she says. Prioritizing time for their health is a big step. “I was so afraid that everybody would be like, She's so unprofessional because she came two hours late because she was at the doctor,” Lara says of her tardiness. “I was shaking in my boots.”

Clothing: Atsuko Kudo. Personal jewelry.

Even with the bumps and bruises, Katseye perseveres. It’s probably because they were made for this: The girl group is the product of a very intentional collaboration between Hybe, the South Korean multinational company behind BTS, and Geffen, an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. Its members were plucked from 120,000 international applicants to be rigorously trained, molded, and manufactured into international superstars through K-pop methodology. In the midst of their training, they learned that they were on an elimination show called The Debut: Dream Academy. Overnight, they went from being a team to being each other’s fiercest competition. Their experience was streamed across YouTube, Weverse (a South Korean platform), and ABEMA (a Japanese platform). The finale, where the members of Katseye were announced, was aired live on November 17, 2023.

The process also resulted in the Netflix docuseries Pop Star Academy: Katseye, where, in just eight episodes, viewers got a behind-the-scenes look as 20 girls were whittled down to six through a mixture of fan voting and teacher evaluations. Almost three years later, Katseye’s members don’t reflect so fondly on the process. “There was a lot of darkness,” Lara says. “People, when they watch it, are always like, ‘Oh my God, you guys went through so much,’ and I'm like, ‘You don't even know a percentage of it.’" The rest of the girls recall injuries, tears, and breakdowns that weren’t shown in the final cut.

Yoonchae, the only member from South Korea, had already started the K-pop training process back home, so most of her time spent working to get into Katseye was solo. “I always went to lessons and practice alone by myself,” she says. “I had to eat by myself every day, so it was very lonely.” In an episode of Dream Academy, a teacher says that Lara needed to work on toning down her personality. In response, the 20-year-old says she became “a completely different person” to have a shot at getting in the group. “I think a lot of the girls went through that same struggle where who they are authentically did not fit into what I think Katseye was originally supposed to be,” Lara says. “I tamed myself because I saw a future and it was worth it, but I think that caused so much soul torment.”

The disconnect between what Katseye was supposed to be and who they’re becoming now might be why this moment in time feels pivotal for them not only as a group, but as individual young women. “If we never cussed in our first livestream or if we weren't wild, we would not be where we are,” Megan says. “I feel like you need to break rules to make an impact in any aspect. Even in the music industry, people who follow the rules don't make history, you know what I mean? I feel like to get what we wanted, we had to start speaking up.”

Their self-expression extends beyond their creative projects. Since joining Katseye, both Megan and Lara have publicly come out as queer—something they’re both proud of and eager to represent. During a live performance of their single “Pinky Up,” Lara wore a version of a “Protect the Dolls” shirt, a slogan that calls to support transgender women. (Conner Ives, the creator of the original shirt worn by a number of celebrities, donates 100% of the profits to Not A Phase, a trans-led, UK-based charity.) The “Pinky Up” music video also features cameos from notable transgender women, including Vivian Wilson, Mel 4Ever, Vhex, Saturn Risin9, and Katalina. Lara articulates her point of view: “I like everyone,” she says. “I will date anyone. I think people really try to invalidate that because of who we currently or have publicly dated. But I've dated so many girls and it's such a beautiful experience to be with women and it's something that's a very core and important part of me that will always be with me for the rest of my life.”

Megan agrees. “I came out as bisexual, but me dating men doesn't take that away from me. My first relationship was with a girl, but [the fans] don't know that,” she says. “I feel like people should just be able to be who they are no matter what. When it comes to race, identity, whatever, if that's who you are, then be who the fuck you are and no one should take that away from you.”

It’s clear all five women have become more self-assured as they’ve settled into pop stardom. They’re quick to declare their opinions when it comes to their outfits and makeup looks and they are—as one would assume after their rigorous training—incredibly professional on set. But at the end of the day, they’re still young women existing in the world—they giggle and FaceTime their friends and family, take selfies in the corner, sing in random spurts, pull out their phones to text and scroll, and turn up the volume when Beyoncé’s Renaissance album blasts through the speakers. At one point, after queuing up a song from Don Toliver, Daniela gets her hands on hot pink hair paint. She bops around the set in her polka-dot outfit, painting down the roots of whoever will let her—which ends up being a sizable portion of the crew—with the bright, glittery concoction. After seeing their brows bleached for the first time at our shoot, Megan and Daniela’s excited screams cause everyone’s heads to whip toward the glam room in a mixture of both fear and curiosity. Thankfully, it’s positive excitement. “It edges me out,” Megan decides. Daniela FaceTimes her dad to show him her new, however fleeting, look.

Their antics remind me of what it was like to live with my six best friends in college, although I quickly remember that they’re not just a group of roommates trying to get through statistics and Thursday happy hour together: They’r