Ethel Cain Covers the Latest Issue of COSMOPOLITAN Magazine

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Hayden Anhedönia—better known by stage name Ethel Cain—has come a long way from the Preacher’s Daughter days. Since the release of her breakthrough project back in 2022, the singer-songwriter faced online cancellation and dropped her most recent album, Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You. While Hayden bares it all as “Ethel Cain” on her new album, she is far from the musical persona she has crafted for herself and the world. For Cosmopolitan’s latest digital cover story, Hayden opens up to Ella Snyder and speaks directly to her fans.

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On whether she’s a fashion girl: “Hayden absolutely is. Ethel Cain is one character in one story, but I have a lot of stories going on. I love to play dress up and allow myself to try out other stuff. I have a personal style for me as an individual….I am always honored when somebody looks at my little country bumpkin ass and thinks, Oh, that could translate to high fashion.”

On how believing she was “undesirable” fueled her work: “I believed for a very long time that I was very undesirable. I remember being in rooms with friends thinking, I’m too ugly to sit here. I’m too weird and gross and unpalatable to the people around me. I have a very hard time believing when people tell me that they find me attractive. I’ve always been very deeply insecure about myself in all aspects. I’m surrounded by people who love me, and sometimes it makes me feel guilty for not trusting them when they say that that’s how they feel….I think that’s one of the reasons that I dove into my work and spent all my time working. I thought, Well, if no one’s going to love me and if I’m disgusting and unlovable, I’m just going to tell stories and be an artist. Nobody has to love me—they can love the art, but they don’t have to love me.”

On how much of her dating experience is reflected in the music she has out right now: “A lot of the music itself is steered more by my fear of dating than actual dating. My current boyfriend is the only man I’ve ever actually been with. We met at my favorite truck stop. I used to hang out there in high school. He’s from Mississippi and he doesn’t really come to Florida that often so it was very weird that he was there.”

On how she was able to write Willoughby Tucker, I Will Always Love You when she’s just going through her first real-life love experience right now: “With Willoughby Tucker, I said, ‘If I’m not going to be in love right now, I’m going to run through my ideal relationship and the way that I want to experience love and just explore what this would look like.’ So I injected all of my wants, all my wishes, all my fears, all of my anxieties into this story and let it play out on this fictional stage. Now that I’m in a relationship at the same time Willoughby’s coming out, I’m revisiting all of these songs and listening to the lyrics and watching my old anxieties and desires play out in an actual relationship.”

On being at the intersection of transness and celebrity and whether she worries for her safety: “I’m constantly worried, especially in this political climate. Even just being outspoken on my identity in the trans community and other sociopolitical issues is frightening. I’ve never been in a situation physically where I genuinely feared for my life, which I’m very grateful for. But I have been through things, my family has been through things that were frightening and made me worry, How far are people that don’t like me willing to take this? So it is frightening, but I would say it’s frightening to be a minority in any way, especially in America. I think that the greatest form of activism you can do as a minority is to continue living your life.”

On her fan base and whether they are very parasocial: “They defend me at times when I’m appreciative of it, and then they also defend me at times that I shouldn’t be defended….I am a complex person. I’m deeply flawed. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. And I also try to be a better person every day. But in prioritizing openness and honesty and giving all of myself to people, in thinking that it makes me a good person, I have accidentally, without realizing, created a parasocial environment with my fan base where I think they have more claim to me than they actually do.”

[Photo Credit: Justin Leveritt for Cosmopolitan]

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