1992–2021: Early life and career beginnings Petras was born on 27 August 1992, grew up in ,
North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and has two older sisters. Her mother is a dancer and her father is an architect. She began identifying as female aged two and began
hormone therapy aged 12. having taught herself English by watching
YouTube videos of English-speaking artists such as
Britney Spears; her earliest works were produced on
GarageBand. and that she was inspired to become a musician after watching a songwriting documentary. In 2006, aged 13, she discussed her medical
gender transition on an episode of ''''. She then made further appearances on international news in an effort to be accepted for
gender-affirming surgery by age 16, two years earlier than Germany would normally allow. When she did this in 2008, outlets touted her as the "world's youngest transsexual". While still in school, she visited recording studios unannounced and recorded demos, which prompted
Universal Music Germany to sign her while she was in her teens. Part of her deal was a jingle for a detergent firm. Aged 19, with the money she had made from her jingles and a job as a waitress, Among the tracks she wrote during this period was "Bratz What's Up", which was recorded by
Skylar Stecker for what would have been a sequel to the film
Bratz, That year, she set up her own imprint, Bunhead Records. Petras released her debut single "
I Don't Want It at All" in August 2017 and the singles "Hillside Boys" and "Hills featuring Baby E" in September 2017. A music video for the first was released in October and featured
Paris Hilton. Petras then released "Slow It Down" in November before featuring on
Charli XCX's "
Unlock It" and releasing "Faded" (featuring
Lil Aaron) in December; the second featured on XCX's mixtape
Pop 2 that month, went viral after featuring in a
TikTok trend in 2021, She also released a video for "Faded" in January 2018, which peaked at No. 52 on
Billboards
Dance Club Songs chart. She followed this with the singles "Can't Do Better" and "All the Time" in June and August and the
Halloween-themed EP
Turn Off the Light, Vol. 1 in October. The last of these featured Petras singing in German and contained vocals from
Cassandra Peterson. She had intended to release
Turn Off the Light, Vol. 2 in October 2019 but instead released the album
Turn Off the Light then, which ended with
Turn Off the Light, Vol. 1. A third instalment was announced in October 2020 but remained unreleased five years later. In November 2018, her composition "Young & Wild" featured on
Twice's EP
Yes or Yes and her vocals featured on
Cheat Codes' song "
Feeling of Falling"; the latter charted on
Billboards
Dance/Electronic Songs chart at number 23. She then released three singles in February 2019: "
1, 2, 3 Dayz Up" featuring
Sophie, "If U Think About Me...", and "Homework" featuring Lil Aaron. These, and her first eight singles, have been referred to by Petras as "
Era 1". Between April and June 2019, Petras released the singles "Broken", "Got My Number", "Blow It All", "
Sweet Spot", "
All I Do Is Cry", "Do Me", "Clarity", "Personal Hell", and "Another One", followed by the album
Clarity, which featured all of them. She then featured on
Charli XCX's "
Click" and a remix of
Max Schneider's "
Love Me Less" in September and teamed up with
Kash Doll,
Stefflon Don, and
Alma in October for "
How It's Done"; the last of these was recorded for
the soundtrack of November's
''Charlie's Angels''. In February 2020, she released the single "
Reminds Me", which was covered by
The Kid Laroi and
Juice Wrld in December 2020 to mark a year after the latter's death, and announced that she would be the supporting act on the European leg of
Camila Cabello's
the Romance Tour, which was aborted due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. That May, Petras released the single "
Malibu", which was promoted by a performance on
Jimmy Kimmel Live! and later remade in
Simlish for
The Sims 4, and featured on the
Kygo song "
Broken Glass", which featured on his album
Golden Hour and charted at number 13 on
Billboards Dance/Electronic Songs chart. and remixes of
Studio Killers' "
Jenny" and
ElyOtto's "
SugarCrash!" in April and May 2021.
2021–present: Republic Records In August 2021, Petras signed to the
Republic Records imprint Amigo Records and released "
Future Starts Now". At the time, the track was intended as the lead single from her major-label debut studio album,
Problématique. Her September performance of the song at
that year's MTV Video Music Awards pre-show and her November 2021 performances at
that year's MTV Europe Music Awards and
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade made her the first out trans artist to perform at any of them. Her performance at the EMAs was intentionally raunchy in protest against
a then-recent anti-LGBTQ law that had been passed in Hungary, where the awards were being held. and released "
Coconuts"; the latter had premiered at the EMAs and inspired the name of one of
JoJo Siwa's cars. Petras released
Slut Pop in February 2022, an EP containing highly sexual lyrics. She has stated that she was inspired to release such content due to her own struggles with being sexual. The EP contained "Throat Goat", which went viral in March 2023 after a
sign language interpreter provided an explicit translation at Sydney
World Pride, and "XXX", which Petras re-recorded in Simlish for
The Sims' 25th anniversary. She appeared in
Grindr's series
Bridesman in April 2022 and featured on Alex Chapman's "Horsey" the month after. During June's
Pride Month, she released an Amazon Original cover of
Kate Bush's "
Running Up That Hill" for the occasion and used a performance at
NYC Pride March to call out the then-recent overturning of
Roe v. Wade. In July, Petras was the subject of the
Amazon Music documentary
The Lead Up following which much of it leaked; a revised version was released in September 2023. From August 2022,
Sam Smith began teasing their Petras collaboration "
Unholy" on TikTok, where it went viral. Upon release the following month, the song made her the first openly transgender woman to top the
Billboard Hot 100, charted at number one in nineteen other countries including the UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, and made Petras the first openly transgender musician to win a
Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. She followed "Unholy" in November with "
If Jesus Was a Rockstar" and in January 2023 with "
Brrr" and a remix of
Meghan Trainor's "
Made You Look". She then released "
Alone" (featuring
Nicki Minaj) in April, which sampled
Alice Deejay's "
Better Off Alone" and charted at number 55 on the Billboard Hot 100, and appeared on the cover of May's
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, becoming the second trans woman to be featured. In June, she featured on a rerecording of Paris Hilton's "
Stars Are Blind", a track she had covered in 2020 for a
Stonewall Gives Back livestream, and released her own album
Feed the Beast; the latter charted at No. 44 on the
Billboard 200. She then featured on a remix of
Sofía Reyes and
Danna Paola's "TQUM" in July and on
James Hype's "Drums" and a remix of
City Girls' "Flashy" in October; the second sampled
Justin Timberlake's "
Like I Love You". She was scheduled to craft
the theme song of
UEFA Euro 2024 with
OneRepublic and
Meduza, but was replaced with German singer
Leony. She judged an episode of
series two of ''
RuPaul's Drag Race: UK vs. the World'' in early 2024 and booked a series of festival dates for the following summer, but cancelled them on medical advice in April and stated in November 2025 that she had damaged her vocal cords during her Feed the Beast World Tour, which had finished in March 2024. and on Perry's album
143 that month. Petras released "Polo" and "Freak It" in July 2025, featured on
Frost Children's
Sister album track "Radio" in September, and released "I Like Ur Look" in October. She requested to be dropped from Republic in January for allegedly refusing to give her a date for her album and withholding payment to collaborators, following which she independently released the songs "Pop Sound", "Mr. Producer" (featuring BC Kingdom), "Cha Cha", and "Get Some" (featuring
Cortisa Star) weekly from February. These songs were released on
SoundCloud and
YouTube and did not appear on major streaming sites, but did form the EP
Pretour. A further
Detour track,
Need for Speed, was released in April. == Artistry and public image ==