CULTURE

Mandy Moore Is Back With Her First Original Song in a Decade

Delivering on her promise to not “let Ryan [Adams] stop” her music career.

by Steph Eckardt

24th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards - Red Carpet
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

When Mandy Moore came forward with seven other women to accuse Ryan Adams—Moore’s former husband—of “psychological abuse” that ultimately harmed their careers, she ended on a positive note. “I want to make music,” she told New York Times earlier this year. “I’m not going to let Ryan stop me.”

Now, months later, Moore proved she’s stayed true to her word. On Tuesday at midnight, the 35-year-old singer and star of This Is Us released her first original song in a decade. Titled “When I Wasn’t Watching,” the single is apparently just the first taste of what she’s called a “California-sounding” and “very personal” new album to come—the first since her last studio album, 2009’s Amanda Leigh. (It was written with Jason Boesel, formerly of Rilo Kiley, and Dawes frontman Taylor Goldsmith (who also happens to be Moore’s husband, and comes with a music video directed by Lauren Dukoff.)

“The idea of diving back into music after so much time and personal change was really intimidating to me for a while,” Moore said in a press release. “But then I finally realized: I’m the only person who can make this move. It all has to start with me.” (She previously told the Times that Adams’s controlling behavior essentially did block my ability to make new connections in the industry during a very pivotal and potentially lucrative time—my entire mid-to-late 20s.”)

On Monday, Moore held a Q&A session on her Instagram Stories to tease the single, which she described as “just the first little taste” of her upcoming album. “This is just the beginning. More music to come.” From the sound of it, that might be sooner rather than later: Moore hopes to finish the record by the end of the year, and responded to a question about her plans to tour with a coy “stay tuned.”

Related: Ryan Adams’s First Reaction to Sexual Misconduct Story Was to Threaten Legal Action in a Now Deleted Tweet