How Adéla Turned Reality-TV Elimination Into a Pop Career Entirely Her Own

Against the backdrop of pastel-painted panelák housing blocks, Adéla twerks, writhes, and body rolls in a fountain in Bratislava, Slovakia. This is the video for “Ain’t in L.A.,” the third single off the breakout musician’s debut album, Prima, coming September 4 via Capitol Records—and it embodies her mission statement in one three-and-a-half-minute clip. In one frame, she’s doing the splits in a coral bikini top and black microshorts, above the camera. In the next, she’s dancing with a group of children wearing traditional Slovak folk costumes, crumping and breakdancing in front of a Hollywood poster.

If you already know Adéla, 22, it’s probably as the singer who got cut. Eliminated from the reality competition that produced the girl group Katseye, she took a bruising edit and turned it into an extremely online, self-made solo career in less than a year, opening for Demi Lovato and garnering her own rabid fan base. Fresh off a set at Lollapalooza and the London kickoff of her 21-date headlining Red Bottoms Tour—named for the Louboutins she wears daily—“Ain’t in L.A.” just earned Adéla her first Billboard Hot 100 entry.

But her real origin story is in the imagery of that video. The Hollywood poster is less set dressing and more family heirloom. The first verse of “Ain’t in L.A.” describes a scene from her mother’s upbringing: walls covered in posters of American pop-culture icons like Madonna; Western media that was banned in communist Czechoslovakia at the time (Slovakia gained independence in 1993, a decade before Adéla was born). Adéla’s grandfather worked in the mines in West Germany and would smuggle the contraband posters over the border for his daughter. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is a generational thing that we both love,’” Adéla says. “It’s crazy that I got to pursue it.” Naturally, her mom (and little sister) appear in the video. “Those are the two baddest bitches I know.”

Adéla got to pursue it, and then some. She’s speaking to W over FaceTime from Los Angeles, sitting on a patch of grass in the California sunshine with a face free of makeup, her long pink strands swaying in the breeze. She lives in (and loves) L.A. full-time now. “The whole world has been fed American pop culture,” she says. “It makes you feel like you’re missing out on this dream life. I wanted to make a song for people to be like, ‘You don’t have to leave your country. There’s beauty in where you’re from, too.’”

Born Adéla Jergová in Bratislava, she was trained in ballet from the age of three before getting cast on The Debut: Dream Academy, the 2023 reality competition from South Korean conglomerate HYBE and American record label Geffen Records, designed to assemble the next big global girl group. More than 120,000 hopefuls from around the world auditioned; 20 made the show, which aired on YouTube, and fan votes decided who stayed. Adéla was cut in the first round of eliminations from the group that would become global pop phenom Katseye. When Netflix’s behind-the-scenes docuseries Pop Star Academy: Katseye landed on the streamer in August 2024, Adéla received the dreaded villain edit—but she was given something else, too: a relentless drive to capitalize on her newfound notoriety.

She released her first single, “Homewrecked,” independently within weeks of the docuseries’ premiere. That time also marked the “manic” period when she dyed her blonde hair a shade of cotton candy, a look that’s now her calling card (“My fans love to say that I’m a natural pink,” she says). The song took off, and a line delivered on camera by HYBE x Geffen president Mitra Darab ahead of her elimination—“We see Adéla as a solo artist”—became both her fan tagline and a prophecy.

The album—executive produced by 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady and Blake Slatkin—is a maturation of the sound Adéla has been developing on her own the past few years, and its title nods to her first love of ballet. The prima ballerina is the highest-ranking soloist in a ballet company, and “It’s something I’m striving to be in pop music,” Adéla notes. On stage, she performs in pointe shoes, alternating between barre moves and the nearly contortionist-style dancing for which she’s becoming known. “The choreo doesn’t take itself too seriously—it’s campy, wink-wink energy, almost ironic,” she says, adding, “If you’re buying the tickets, you can call it whatever the fuck you want.”

When Adéla began working with stylist and creative director Chris Horan—a longtime Charli xcx collaborator—they leaned into a similar energy. The pair was inspired by the “Slavic Doll realness” that dominated mid-aughts runways and Eastern European rave fashion from the ’90s—tiny shorts, bra tops, and platform boots. In the video for “KGB,” the album's lead single, Adéla is a fly on the wall, absorbing American pop culture like a spy: “I was like eight, working the night shift to learn English/I’m like a spy, I studied this shit, call me the K-G-Bitch.” (The video closes with an onscreen disclaimer—the imagery is “an acknowledgment of where I’m from,” not an endorsement, and she stands “with the people of Ukraine.”)

“You end up romanticizing the U.S.,” she says, recalling watching the Disney Channel to teach herself the language. “I would even romanticize things like Target.” Ask about the albums that shaped her, and she rattles them off—Ariana Grande’s My Everything, Miley Cyrus’s Bangerz (the distorted refrain on “Ain’t In L.A.” is rapped by Theron Thomas, also the voice on Miley Cyrus’s “We Can’t Stop”), and Beyoncé’s self-titled visual album, which dropped when Adéla was ten (“I could feel it shifting the tectonic plates of my brain”).

Lately, the icons have started noticing her back. Take “Nicole Kidman,” the song inspired by a Golden Globes party Adéla was “somehow” invited to. “I’ve never been in a movie, but I got all glammed up, and my corset was so tight that I thought, ‘I feel like Nicole Kidman right now,’” she says. When a fan asked Kidman if she knew about Adéla at the Practical Magic 2 premiere in London, the actress said, “I absolutely know who she is—and she’s coming to Nashville, and I’m going to go see her.” The next day, Kidman made her TikTok debut with a video soundtracked by “Ain’t in L.A.”

Fame has reached everyone from the Dream Academy class, though not without some turbulence. The day before our conversation, Katseye’s Sophia Laforteza announced a hiatus from the group to prioritize her mental health, the second member to step back this year, after Manon Bannerman in February. Adéla is watching it all unfold on her own accelerating timeline.

“When you’re a public persona, you are there to be consumed,” she says. “If you’re a woman, you’re the best person in the world one day, and tomorrow you’ll be the worst, guaranteed.” The realization has been oddly freeing. “It’s part of the job. If I’m the villain in your story and you get to vent to other people on the internet, maybe it helps you feel better. You’re almost everybody’s therapist and their case study.”

As for what’s next, she isn’t shy about the scale of her ambitions. “I’m excited to do arenas one day. I am a showgirl at heart,” she says, noting that she knows her mother will be in the audience, because she already is. “Whenever I see a video of myself, my mom has already liked, commented, and reposted,” Adéla says. “She’s always been my number-one fan.” And the song that was written for her? “She gets emotional about it all the time,” Adéla says with a laugh. “She just cries.”