Katseye Is Done Following the Rules

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. It’s a massive production, a first-ever collaboration between Allure US, Allure Philippines, and Allure Korea. 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.

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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.” 

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.

Charlotte Rutherford

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 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.

Charlotte Rutherford

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’re young like we were, sure, but they’re also integral parts of a global machine, and they all have their own roles to play to keep the wheels turning. Sophia is the leader, a position once held by Lara after an initial group vote. Lara spent very little time with the title before realizing that being the liaison between Katseye and their label was not for her. “I think that you guys appointed me to [be the] leader because I speak up a lot, but it takes a lot more than that,” she says, adding that being the leader involves “a lot more understanding of the company.” 

Now, they tell me Lara takes charge of voicing the group’s creative opinions, Megan is the “mood maker,” and Yoonchae acts as the bridge to the K-pop world. When Daniela starts to reflect on her position in Katseye, she pauses. “I don’t know. I want to hear what my bandmates think,” she says, straightening and turning toward the rest of the girls. “Genuinely, what role do I play? If I weren’t in Katseye, what would be missing?”

It’s a big question to ask during an on-the-record interview with a stranger. While Sophia launches into describing Daniela’s purpose (which includes bringing the “fire” to their onstage performances) and the rest declare there would be a “very huge void” if she was gone, there is, notably, someone actually missing here: Manon Bannerman, the (almost) 24-year-old sixth member of Katseye. The last time Katseye publicly operated as a group of six was on February 4, during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Since February 20, Manon has been on a “temporary hiatus” from the group to “focus on her health and well-being,” according to a statement released by Hybe and Geffen. They added that they “look forward to being together again when the time is right.”

The same day, Manon released her own statement on Weverse: “Hi friends. 🤍 I want you to hear this from me, I’m healthy, I’m okay, and I’m taking care of myself. Thank u for checking in! Sometimes things unfold in ways we don’t fully control, but I’m trusting the bigger picture. Thank you for standing by me. I love you endlessly and can’t wait to see you again.”

Since then, the remaining fivesome has endured nonstop questions and speculation regarding their sixth member’s “health and well-being” and when she’ll return, if at all. Although Manon shared an update in April that she was having “positive conversations” with the label and was “happy and healthy,” there hasn’t been an update regarding her position within Katseye. Representatives for Hybe and Geffen declined to be interviewed for this story.

Charlotte Rutherford

Four months out from the official announcement, it seems that the timing for Manon’s return still isn’t right—although throughout our conversation, Katseye still refers to themselves as a group of six. When I ask if Manon has any plans to rejoin the group, Sophia reiterates the hiatus messaging: “Because we did announce that it is about her well-being, it’s not our place or anybody else’s place to rush her,” she says. “We want to give her all the time that she needs, all the space that she needs, and so we don’t want to make any assumptions, set anything in stone… She really deserves that and the door is always open.”

I acknowledge that they’ve been fielding a lot of questions about their missing sixth member for some time now. “We love her and the fans love her. The people love her. They love Katseye,” Sophia continues, cementing herself as today’s dedicated speaker on the topic. “If I was in their place I would be asking too, and so we understand. But what we can say is that we wish that you could just keep extending love and support and patience and all those things, because all of us deserve that. Anybody does.” At the time of publication, no mentions of Katseye appear in Manon’s social media bios. Some are certain she’ll go solo.

Since February 20, Manon’s role in the group has been a consistent topic on social media, with fans online monitoring the group’s every move and generating their own theories on what’s been happening. Some of them aren’t so kind. By now, the girls know how to handle the internet’s varied opinions—they all seem to have developed boundaries with social media, and that includes removing themselves entirely, if necessary. Lara has had TikTok deleted for the past three weeks.

They’ve also thrown themselves into preparing for the upcoming tour for their new body of work, Wild. Although I’ve only been given a few snippets to listen to, they tell me it’s a big departure, both sonically and aesthetically, from their first EP, SIS, almost two years ago. “If you look at the SIS era and see how we were then…” Sophia trails off. “Like, what is that?” Lara agrees. “We were not us at all,” she says. Do they feel like Wild is more “them,” then? “With every release that we put out, the more authentic and raw it gets to us,” Megan says.

Although K-pop isn’t their sound, it is part of Katseye’s blueprint. “I’d say our music is not K-pop, but it is heavily inspired by it,” Daniela says. “I feel like the most K-pop thing about us is definitely our training system,” Yoonchae adds. She’s the group’s only South Korean member—Sophia is from the Philippines, and Lara, Daniela, and Megan are all from the United States, although they rep their Indian, Latin, and Chinese cultures whenever they can. 

Charlotte Rutherford

Like their music, some of Katseye’s members often feel like they’re straddling two worlds when it comes to their identities. “For the Americans and for the white people, I’m not white enough. Then for the Latinos, I’m not Latin enough,” Daniela says. “There’s a lot of people in that middle ground that feel the same way, that don’t feel accepted. I just want to be there for those people.” Megan, who is half Chinese and half white, feels the same. “Growing up in America and being mixed, it was honestly kind of hard for me to find my place and where I stood,” she says. “I had a little bit of mixed kid dysphoria, and going into Katseye, I was kind of scared at first. I was like, I don’t really know what I represent… I had to realize that being mixed doesn’t take away anything. It doesn’t take away [from] how Chinese I am.”

While they’re all living on their own now except for Lara, who lives with her family, Yoonchae appears to be having the hardest time adjusting. She’s the youngest member, and was 15 when she competed for a spot in the girl group. “When I came to America for Katseye, I was very confused and I had a very hard time. I had to adjust, making my new version of Yoonchae for America,” she says. “It was very hard to do that and it’s still hard right now, too.”

“I saw one eyekon post on Twitter, and she was Korean. She came to America for school… and she, like me, was having such a hard time adjusting to American culture,” Yoonchae says. “She also met a lot of mean people and she got bullied and everything like that.” Telling this story, Yoonchae starts to get emotional. “When she saw me [join] Katseye, growing up in this new country and learning new languages and seeing me, who’s younger than her and struggling with the same thing as her… When I saw that it seemed like I was looking at myself. So the way she felt I helped her, she also helped me.”

As she’s nearing the end of her story, Yoonchae starts to cry. The girls all turn toward her in a way that feels maternal. In other interviews, including this one, it’s obvious they’re protective of her. They often jump in to finish her sentences or ask if she needs help when she has trouble finding the English words for what she wants to vocalize. Someone grabs her a tissue.

“We’re not faking it,” Sophia assures me later. While part of their success relies on the eyekons buying that their friendship is real, by now I’ve seen their dynamic firsthand. The bond feels familial. I guess part of it is because they really did cohabitate in the Hybe x Geffen womb they emerged from. “We really are best friends,” continues Sophia. “And they know everything about me, and because we’re with each other all the time, we don’t see each other as workmates. We see each other as literal family. We really are sisters. We really are friends that hang out… My bridesmaids. It’s insane.”

Charlotte Rutherford

As it does with any group of close-knit young women hyped up on sugary snacks and delirious after a long day, the conversation derails at the mention of a wedding. Quickly. “By then we’ll have our own children and our children will be each other’s flower girls,” Megan says. “Oh my God, my daughter’s going to be your flower girl,” Sophia says. The thought appears to have shaken Megan to her very core. “Oh my God,” she says. “Imagine being pregnant.”

“Imagine our kids form a girl group,” Lara says, simultaneously realizing what she’s just put out into the universe. The girls all protest immediately. “My children are not allowed to be in this,” she then asserts.

After a communal freak-out over their looming futures and a flurry of promises that yes, of course they would all fly to South Korea and India for Yoonchae’s and Lara’s respective, hypothetical weddings, they’re back to reflecting on what being part of Katseye has taught them. “As an only child, I never really learned things about myself and things that I can get better at,” Daniela says. “I had my parents and friends, but…it’s hard, I think, especially not growing up with siblings, because I don’t know, you don’t really have that person that’s kind of your age just giving you advice, life advice, girl advice, whatever it is.”

They all seem to agree with the idea that working together has changed them in ways they’re still striving to understand. “I never really loved teamwork growing up, to be honest,” Lara says. “I hated a school project. I always just wanted to do it myself, but teamwork is a really valuable, amazing thing to be good at and to learn. There is no better place to learn it than this.” 

Each member derives her own realizations from this experience, with its dual crucibles of grindingly hard work and pop adulation. But there’s one thing they certainly could all agree on: Katseye is bigger than the sum of its parts. And they’re still hungry. 

Collect all five KATSEYE covers of Allure Philippines Volume 4. Get your copy here.

Photographed by Charlotte Rutherford.  Stylist: Lisa Jarvis.  Hair: Evanie Frausto. Makeup: Alexandra French.  Manicure: Juan Alvear. Set Design: Leona Johnson. Movement Director: Crystalline. DP (Motion only): Robert Marrero. 3-D Art: Metapoint.xyz. Production: Someday Studio. Writer: Elizabeth Gulino .

Credits for group cover photo: All clothing by Marc Jacobs. On Lara: bracelets from Maabae, tights from Calzedonia, other personal jewelry.

Credits for individual photos:

For Sophia. Dress: Mithridate. Tights: Falke. Gloves: Gaspar. Necklace: Saule. Earrings: Michael Nash. 

For Lara. Bikini: Agent Provocateur. Skirt: Rowen Rose. Shoes: Jimmy Choo. Personal jewelry. Ring: Dior.

For Megan. Dress: GCDS Bra: Montce. Tights: Emilio Cavallini. Gloves: Gaspar. Necklaces: Moges studio.

For Yoonchae. Dress: Cara Cara. Tights: Emilio Cavallini. Necklace: Mudd Pearl half and half. Necklace: Mateo pearls. Earrings: Saule.

For Daniela. Top: Carolina Herrera. Skirt: Carolina Herrera. Bra: Montce. Gloves: Gaspar. Earrings: Panconesi. Necklace: Saint Laurent.