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RAYE Says Fans Who Tear Her Down ‘Defending’ Amy Winehouse Repeat the Same Abuse
RAYE tells Billboard that fans attacking her in Amy Winehouse's name echo the same abuse Winehouse faced, and discusses the lyric and her album's success.
RAYE told Billboard that fans who attack her while claiming to defend Amy Winehouse are repeating the same cruelty the late singer endured, in a Billboard cover story published May 7.
RAYE was photographed on April 10, 2026 at The Auditorium in Chicago. Gucci faux fur coat, earrings and heels.
She addresses the dynamic on the opening track of her March album This Music May Contain Hope, a song titled “I Will Overcome.” On the track she sings:
“Some people say I remind them of Amy/ Some spit through their keyboards, I’ll never amount/ And the evil in insults, the arrows from your tongue/ [Are] the same devils you tortured her with.”
Explaining the lyric to Billboard staff writer Hannah Dailey, RAYE said, “It just strikes me as so funny, darkly funny, that someone can rip into me in the most evil, horrible way, ‘defending’ Amy.”
She continued: “What you’re saying to me is a microcosm of what Amy went through. Amy went through being berated and annihilated through words — by the press, by the public, by everyone.”
RAYE added, “It’s one thing to not like me, that’s fine. It’s just the irony of someone being so horrible, so dark, so nasty. It’s the same evil. I just wanted to say that, because … I get a lot of beautiful, lovely, kind things. Unfortunately, the negative things are just louder.”
Album milestones and context
This Music May Contain Hope debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 after its March release and reached No. 1 in the U.K. It is RAYE’s first LP to top the U.K. albums chart. The success follows her split from Polydor Records in 2021 and a period in which she built her career as an independent artist.
The Billboard cover story also has RAYE discussing mental health, sexual assault, and her shifting relationship to romance. She framed the latter through the lens of her single “Where Is My Husband!,” which has peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“It’s been genuinely so many years that it feels alien to me,” she said. “Sometimes I’m very assured and confident and happy with my life, and then some days I’m watching a rom-com, and I’m like, ‘Where? Where?’ But it’s not serious. I’m not crying myself to sleep every night — just some nights.”
RAYE’s comments and the album’s performance were detailed in her Billboard cover story on May 7.
