KATSEYE is the girl group of the moment.
With over 30 billion TikTok views last year, a standout Grammy performance in February, their Coachella debut, and a new GAP collaboration launching on Complex—they're everywhere.
It's not an accident.
They are the result of one of the most ambitious endeavors in modern pop history by two of the biggest labels on opposite sides of the world: HYBE, the home of K-Pop mega-group BTS, and Geffen Records, one of the most decorated labels in American music history.
After BTS became the first K-pop group to top the Billboard Hot 100, HYBE set out on a bigger goal: to prove that K-pop's development system could work in the United States and beyond. Meanwhile, Geffen Records saw K-pop as a path to reviving the devoted fan culture of the late '90s boyband era.
And so these two powerhouses bet everything on six girls from around the world who would eventually become the original members of KATSEYE: Sophia Laforteza, 23; Lara Raj, 20; Manon Bannerman, 23; Daniela Avanzini, 21; Megan Skiendiel, 20; and Yoonchae, 18.
Since 2024, KATSEYE has released two EPs with contrasting personalities. SIS (Soft Is Strong) is pastel-toned in its visuals and empowering in its message—leading with “Touch,” a sugary dance-pop track with self-affirming lyrics and an addictive hook.
Their second EP, Beautiful Chaos, takes a shocking left turn: “Gnarly” captured attention with its risky point of view, and “Gabriela” gave us the modern day “Jolene”with a Latin twist.
Over the weekend, KATSEYE made their Coachella debut. In celebration of the moment, and their new collection with GAP, which you can buy on Complex, here are 11 things you didn’t know about KATSEYE.
1. KATSEYE was formed through a survival show, but the girls had no idea that’s what they were training for
On September 1st, 2023, the world first met the future members of KATSEYE when The Debut: Dream Academy premiered.
The reality competition series, set up by HYBE and Geffen, would determine which six of 20 contestants would debut as the group. And by November 17, 2023, during the live finale, the six came together as a group.
But KATSEYE and the other contestants had no idea they'd signed up for a survival show—believing they were simply in intensive K-pop training, unaware that the label was building toward a public elimination."
Their reactions were captured in the Netflix docuseries Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE, and they were not exactly thrilled. Lara said, “I never in a million, trillion, gazillion years thought I would be on a survival show. Like, it’s such a gag.”
Sophia was more matter-of-fact: “They told us ‘Surprise! A survival show.’ We were like ‘…Ooh.’” Contestant Karlee, who didn’t make the final group, put it plainly: “I kept asking, ‘This isn't a survival show, right?’ and they were like, ‘No.’”
2. Sophia kept her Dream Academy audition a secret from her famous mom
Getting onto Dream Academy was a statistical miracle: out of 140,000 applicants, only 20 made it—that’s roughly a 1 in 7,000 chance. With stakes that high, most would have used every advantage available. But KATSEYE’s leader Sophia, who is from the Philippines, faced those odds head on.
Sophia’s mother, Carla Guevara Laforteza is one of the most decorated musical theater actresses in the Philippines.
But instead of leveraging connections, Sophia strived to get in on her own merit. In Pop Star Academy, she revealed that she didn't tell her parents she had auditioned for HYBE x Geffen's project, and planned to keep it a secret until she was ready to move to Los Angeles. What’s funny is that her mom pulled a similar move—Carla didn't tell her own parents she had been cast in Miss Saigon until two weeks before she was set to move to London.
3. Manon was a star before she was an idol
Some people just have that "je ne sais quoi." Manon Bannerman, raised in Switzerland by Swiss Italian and Ghanaian parents, is one of those girls. While most of her teammates found their way to the group through auditions, HYBE and Geffen came to her.
In Pop Star Academy, casting manager Michelle can be seen scrolling through Manon’s TikTok, visibly struck. “When I first saw her, I instantly knew this girl’s gonna be a star,” she said. “I went to her Instagram and DM’d her.” Before KATSEYE, Manon built a following as a model and content creator, and even had a TikTok beauty filter created based on her face.
Once the girl on your mood board, Manon is now the one setting the mood. When asked to describe KATSEYE's aesthetic, she had three words: “diverse, cunty, and hot.”
4. The Co-Founder of Opening Ceremony is responsible for KATSEYE’s embrace of vintage
KATSEYE's wardrobe is a treat for the fashion obsessed. There's always a vintage gem to be spotted—an item from Ghesquière-era Balenciaga here, a Galliano for Dior there. The person sourcing these finds is Humberto Leon, one of the visionaries behind Opening Ceremony and former creative director of Kenzo.
In his role as KATSEYE's creative director, Leon takes inspiration from icons like Devon Aoki and early Shakira, as well as the girls' cultural backgrounds. Lara is rarely seen without her bindi and Manon always wears waist beads honoring her Ghanaian roots—all while Leon dresses them in some of the most covetable archival pieces in fashion.
5. Yoonchae celebrated her high school graduation and her debut in the same month
June 2024 was a pivotal month for KATSEYE as a whole, but perhaps none more so than Yoonchae Jeung.
The group finally stepped onto the scene with "Debut," a spunky celebration of sisterhood, self-belief, and their journey to becoming KATSEYE.
Meanwhile, KATSEYE's youngest member, Yoonchae, who was born in Korea, was also marking a milestone of her own: graduating high school at 16.
Busy as they were preparing to release their first EP, the older girls still found time to throw their youngest member a surprise graduation party.
6. KATSEYE wasn't always allowed to drop f-bombs. Their second EP changed that.
SIS (Soft is Strong), is a sweet embrace of young womanhood, appropriate for a group navigating both the Korean idol world and the Los Angeles music scene.
But the girls couldn’t help dropping the mask on Weverse livestreams – most notably in one instance when they didn’t realize they were live.
Their second EP Beautiful Chaos freed them. When Manon heard “Gnarly” for the first time, her initial reaction was telling: “I didn’t expect such a crazy song. I was just super excited because I was like, ‘Oh my god, finally we can cuss!’” The girls had been vocal about wanting to explore a more grown up version of themselves.
In an interview with NME, Lara, who is Chinese Singaporean, cited SOPHIE and Charli XCX as inspirations for the production.
7. On the day of the "Gnarly" shoot, Megan's birthday cake said something else entirely
Megan Skiendiel, who is has a reputation as a lore drop queen due to her documented history of revealing major personal information mid-livestream without warning.
During Pride month in 2025, she opened up about being bisexual, and then continued on to share her struggles with psoriasis. (Lara Rajagopalan also came out on a livestream in March 2025, saying that she was "half fruitcake.")
Perhaps the most iconic example came on the day of the “Gnarly” music video shoot—which was also Megan’s 19th birthday. Her teammates presented her with a cake that read “I’m Gnarly.” Megan, who has dyslexia—a fact she casually dropped during a Weverse live in September 2024—read it as something else— “I’m Cunty.”
Megan came to KATSEYE with one of the more unpredictable pre-debut résumés in the group. She guest-starred in a Disney Channel show, trained as a J-Pop idol, and walked in Paris and LA fashion weeks.
Fans of the group quickly dug up videos from a long abandoned YouTube channel posted by a young Megan as well, further solidifying her as the member with the most chaotic digital footprint.
8. “Gnarly” started as a TikTok nobody watched
“You could describe everything with one single word.”
For Chinese hyperpop artist Alice Longyu Gao, that word was “gnarly.” As a non-native English speaker, Gao was both “amused and surprised” by the way Americans used the slang to describe everything and nothing at all. She’s
posted videos of her musings on the gnarliness of boba and fried chicken—an outsider’s wry take on the performative fun of LA culture. On April 5th, 2023, Andrew Taggart of The Chainsmokers posted a demo of the song on TikTok featuring its creator Gao. It sat there for two years waiting for the right artist.
HYBE and Geffen picked it up and brought in additional producers, including HYBE founder Bang Si-Hyuk. When “Gnarly” dropped on April 30th, 2025, the reaction was immediate and divided. With psycho-pop beats, raucous lyrics like “Tesla – Gnarly,” and “Making beats for a boring dumb b*tch, f*cking gnarly,” and jarring choreography to match, watching the "Gnarly" music video for the first time felt like a 5-hour scroll session on TikTok compressed into three minutes. But quickly, that chaos became the joy.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Manon revealed her panic at the initial response. “I was texting the group chat like ‘Is it over? Are we over?’” But Lara looks back fondly at the discourse: “I think it was honestly really nice to have a piece of art that made waves.”
9. Daniela once worked with MattyBRaps
KATSEYE’s main dancer Daniela Avanzini, who is from America, was everywhere before girl-group stardom. By the time she was 10, she’d showcased her ballroom dancing on America’s Got Talent and So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation.
But one of the deeper cuts in her digital footprint are her collabs with the teen rapper Matthew Morris, aka MattyB. She appeared in multiple videos and even covered one of his songs.
Daniela’s evolved far beyond the prepubescent vibe of MattyBRaps. KATSEYE’s creative director Humberto Leon describes her style as “daring” for her openness to “bolder silhouettes.”
10. Little Mix, Rita Ora, and Anitta all said no to “Gabriela”
KATSEYE's beloved sultry single "Gabriela" sat in a drawer even longer than its evil twin "Gnarly.” While the song earned KATSEYE their first Grammy nomination, its co-writers, including Charlie XCX, originally envisioned it for someone else.
The song was written around 2019 for a potential collaboration between Rita Ora and Anitta but both passed. Then the British girl group Little Mix also recorded a version, but that never saw the light of day.
In an interview on BBC Radio 1, Perrie Edwards expressed her love for KATSEYE’s interpretation of the song, and implied the decision to shelf it was made by one member unilaterally: “Yeah, well one of us did. Not me, not Jade, not Leigh-Anne.”
It took six years, but “Gabriela” found the right girls. Daniela—the group’s only Latina member—took on singing the bridge, telling Billboard Phillipines “I’m just so excited to finally be able to have sung in my native language and share that part of me with the rest of the world, because nobody knew that I could sing in Spanish!”
11. Lara sang for Michelle Obama at 13, but that's not KATSEYE's only connection to the White House
Before Lara Ra, who is Indian, became a member of KATSEYE, she dreamed of being a popstar. One stop on the path was a principal role in Michelle Obama's Global Girls Alliance launch video, an initiative aimed at "empowering adolescent girls around the world through education." In it, a teenage Lara can be seen singing Aretha Franklin's “Think” and walking alongside the former First Lady.
Years later, Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE was directed by Nadia Hallgren, the same filmmaker behind the Emmy-nominated Michelle Obama documentary Becoming. The woman who documented the former First Lady's story ended up documenting Lara's too. In a 2020 interview, Lara described Obama as “my idol and one of my biggest role models.”
