KATSEYE reveal why it was 'weird' to watch themselves in Netflix doc

Where have all the girl groups gone?

The U.S. was once ripe with iconic girl groups that shaped our culture. The legacy of the American girl group stretches back to the Supremes and beyond. TLC and Destiny's Child dominated the 90s; the Pussycat Dolls, Danity Kane, and Dream soared in the 2000s; and they're just the tip of the iceberg. The last girl group to have a number-one song on the Billboard Hot 100 was Destiny's Child with "Bootylicious" in 2001. Fifth Harmony is the last American girl group to reach the Top 40 in 2016, bested by K-pop icons BLACKPINK a few times in the 2020s.

So is the modern-day girl group dead? Or evolving?

With the rising popularity of K-pop in the U.S. and around the world, Korean labels began to notice the hole in the market. Thus, KATSEYE was born.

The global girl group was put together via K-pop artist development methods through the HYBE and Geffen Records' reality show The Debut: Dream Academy. That survival show was then turned into a Netflix documentary, and fans were able to witness firsthand how hundreds of girls were whittled down to an all-star group of six: Daniela (U.S.), Lara (U.S.), Manon (Switzerland), Megan (U.S.), Sophia (Philippines), and Yoonchae (South Korea).

Imagine having a Netflix documentary about your messy inception, or dressing as the Winx Club for Halloween, then strutting down the street in costume to Destiny's Child's "Lose My Breath," or going on an international mall tour in 2024, or opening an awards show set with the Los Angeles Rams Cheerleaders. In under a year together and with just one EP under their belt, they've collaborated with artists like Ryan Tedder and Cashmere Cat, toured around the world, met icons like Usher, Ashley Park, Victoria Monét, and Anna Wintour, and have gone viral over and over (and over) again.

There's clearly a millennial gay man (or two) in their corner.

Out caught up with the girls, ages 16 to 22, for a candid conversation about their first year as a group, lessons learned from the Netflix doc, touring, fans, responsibilities, their future as a group, and more.

Keep your eye on KATSEYE. Gay icon status loading...

Out: KATSEYE first garnered attention from Dream Academy late last year, then gained a second wave of fans when Pop Star Academy aired on Netflix in August 2024. Did the fan reaction vary?

Sophia: Personally, I feel a difference between our fans who are there for us since the beginning of Dream Academy, voting for us to be in the group and everything, and the newer fans that are coming in. It's crazy because from both we get so much love and it's always like an endless amount of overwhelming love. And there's this different connection. I feel like we see them a lot on WeVerse, the fans that were there since the beginning and are always there protecting. I feel like they're the ones that we know will protect us. They're always the ones who do the fact-checks and everything because I feel like the documentary brings in a lot of assumptions and, and all that or people asking a lot of questions and I feel like they're like the ones that, "Oh, I know. Yeah. She's this girl. She's that girl." It's really nice to have people that because you have my back. Like, you're my girl. It's really that energy.

They were there in the trenches.

Sophia: In the beginning. And now welcoming the new ones and bringing them in and just filling them in. It's just so beautiful to see that, like how much they're committed to supporting us as eye-cons. I think that's so beautiful. Like, you know, all of us are fangirls before we became artists, and so we get it.

Lara: They know all the lore, the KATSEYE iceberg. They know the bottom of the iceberg. They stayed. They made the iceberg.

Megan: The Dream Academy fans, we have like such a close connection to them because like they were the fans that like got us here. Especially with voting, it was such a big thing during Dream Academy. They were the fans that like really got us through the stages and the missions. So we're like, wow. Like they've been through this journey since the beginning with us, and they inevitably got us to the end. Which was really, really cool. Something that I'm always like so grateful for, but especially with our new fans now, it's like cool for them to go back and see everything that happened before Pop Star Academy, especially since a lot of the fans from Dream Academy were already K-pop stans. Now with the Netflix documentary, some of them aren't so familiar. It's so cool for them to learn about our journey becoming Katseye.

Did anything hit differently watching the documentary back?

Lara: The whole experience hit very differently. This is not a good or bad thing, but the story was told differently than how we experienced it. So I think it was really weird. It was a different point of view. It was a different perspective and sorry, I feel like we had to process it. We had a lot of emotions, watching the show. It's like not a normal experience to watch yourself in that way. And I think that we were watching ourselves from the perspective of other people, and this is how other people us. But it was just weird. We really had to help each other kind of get through that. It was definitely really difficult at the beginning, but it was also awesome. It was really hard for us I think, in the beginning, because it was just like weird. It was something we'd never experienced before. We were hit with this wave of emotions. We always talked about how we felt like we were put back, like watching the show we were put back in that time. It felt like that version of ourselves.

Sophia: I think it felt like during that time we were all under so much pressure, and we were all very focused, and so there were a lot of emotions that we had to sort of set aside and make room for our focus in the moment. To watch the documentary back again for all of us, I feel like seeing that whole scenario, each episode, seeing that image again, kind of brought us back and kind of like made us feel the emotions that we didn't get to feel in the moment. They were all like heavy emotions. I found myself crying about something that I was trying to hold back. I got to relive it and then feel like everything I was trying to suppress. So I feel like that's why it got like, really heavy for a lot of us, and it was just like, oh my goodness.

We recently talked to Adelá about her experience on the show, and I wondered if you had a message to the fans about the relationships between all the girls during the experience

Daniela: During training, we all had a deep, deep like sisterhood connection. We really looked out for each other and we still talk to some of them to this day. We're always just looking out for each other.

Megan: Adding on, we did have such a sisterhood because it's kind of inevitable. We would see them every single day for this amount of hours. And this experience that we all went through was so unique. None of us has ever done this before. It was going on for like, months, building up to a year to a year and a half, and then it turned into a competition. We all bonded with like our stress <laughs> and we were all really, really there for each other. When someone was down, we would like really try to prioritize lifting each other up rather than like making it a competition with them. Like the girls, even though it was a competition in the end, we never wanted to make us turn on each other. As girls, especially around the same age, there will be some, you know, situations, but we all were really good at communicating and everything that did, we always stand with our sisterhood first.

Who are your favorite girl groups?

Sophia: Pussycat Dolls.

Lara: Destiny's Child. Oh, Spice Girls.

Sophia: Fifth Harmony I think was one of my biggest

Megan: I love BLACKPINK.

Lara: Megan loves BLACKPINK.

Daniela: I was such a boy group stan growing up. I loved OneDirection. The Jones Brothers' show.

They had a show?

Daniela: Yes! Jonas. Watch the show! Nick was my first crush, literally, I was like 5 years old.

Megan: I'm like really young. I learned about Nick Jonas through Jumanji.

Manon: What?!

Lara: That was like two years ago!

Daniela: That is such a bold statement.

Megan: I'm sorry!

Daniela: I become just a girl when I see them, like, I fold. I fold in half. It's crazy. Like, I'm like, oh my God.

You performed at the Mall of America earlier this year, and something about a mall tour feels very 90s and early 2000s nostalgia. Lady Gaga performed at Ikea one time?

Manon: Ikea?

Fifth Harmony performed at a Sam's Club in Houston.

Lara: Sam's Club is crazy.

Artists don't want to start from that point of entry anymore. What was that experience like?

Manon: OK at first, I'm not gonna lie, I was like, oh? Perform? [laughs]. I was a little hesitant because I did not know the whole lore behind it and how groups and artists back in the day would do that all the time. But once I informed myself about it, I was like, this is iconic. I saw so many people online being like, "Thank you for bringing us outside. We're so excited." And the fans loved it. And I love that anyone can come see us. It's for free. You don't have to worry about anything. It's amazing. It was so much fun and so many people showed up. I felt bad for people who wanted to shop.

Sophia: But one of the things that stuck with me was that they told us how when we perform at these malls, especially in states like Minnesota, these are where people don't usually get these kinds of things. That's what really struck us because it was like, yeah, we gotta reach the fans who aren't able to come over to L.A. and be at the SoFi Stadium. Mmhmm. Going to these places and really showing the fans that we want to go to you. We wanna meet you.

Do you feel responsibilities or pressure as a global girl group?

Manon: We all just feel a great sense of responsibility to really represent our different cultures and like, stick to it and not let anyone like tone anything down. We really wanna be an example.

Lara: We do like almost everything we can to incorporate our culture even in the tiniest little ways, in our outfits, Manon's waist beads, my bindi, even like Megan wears red a lot, we incorporate those things. This idea of a global girl group is one of the first times it's actually happening. It can be difficult at times because like, we're such a hybrid group between a bunch of different cultures. Even when it's difficult to really make it happen and be able to incorporate our cultures, we fight for it because it's super, super important to us. It's not the easiest thing because I feel like we also are all so different so we have to learn each other. We introduce each other to our food, clothing, music. We're super, super open about that. We're always cooking with each other and making sure that we have respect and also enjoy each other's culture and make sure that the outside world gets to see it through everything we do.

Sophia: Representing the Philippines to me has always been one of the top things in my mind in anything that I do. I have so much pride for where I come from and I realized how much pride I had just by how me as a little girl, like, I kept trying to find that representation every single time. I know every single Filipino, when they see somebody who is Filipino in an industry that they're obsessed with, they like freak out. I remember when I found out that Nicole Scherzinger was Filipino, I was like, oh my God. I'm watching High School Musical and Vanessa Hudgens is Filipino. I was freaking out. That's why I feel like back in the Philippines, like all these opportunities that I would be getting, I would respectfully like decline because I told myself like, I wanna push forward boundaries and I wanna go like beyond the Philippines, not because I wanna leave it, but because I wanna represent it. And I feel like this was the perfect opportunity for me to do so.

I remember the day that they told us it was gonna be a competition and they were finally gonna announce this to the world. The first thing I told my friend was like, I'm so excited for the folk to see me because I just know that that feeling I would get as a little girl of seeing that representation and knowing that I can do it, that's, that was what I wanted other girls to feel. I remember that first video that came out where there was no announcement, and it was us saying "dream" in our different languages. And when somebody heard "pangarap," which is dream in Tagalog... I remember, I wasn't even emotional about anything and there was one comment that said, "As a young Filipino here, I'm already a fan girl of whoever said 'pangarap.'" And I started crying [laughs]. Just, the word, I was like sobbing my eyes out. I think that just says a lot about how me and the other girls feel about this representation. It's not just for the role of the global girl group, we're in this group because we genuinely, passionately wanna represent where we're from because we know the impact.

You have one EP out (SIS: Soft Is Strong) and fans are clamoring for more. Will your release schedule be more like a K-pop group or like a Western group?

Manon: We'll see. With our sound and everything, we're just exploring, experimenting, different things. We listen to the fans a lot. We do what they want because they are, you know, the reason why we're here. So we wanna satisfy them, make them happy.

Lara: We wanna do something new because we're combining the two sides of music. We'll find something in the middle, a middle ground.

What are the biggest lessons you've learned over the last year?

Yoonchae: Be confident.

Manon: Yoonchae learned a whole new language.

Yoonchae: I learned so fast. So much English from our members.

Daniela: To add on, definitely being confident is super important. You have to fake it 'til you make it, even if you don't feel confident, fake it. That honestly has helped me, has helped us so, so much. Also we're kind of like perfectionists in a way. Since I'm a perfectionist, I'm so hard on myself, but it's OK to mess up. We're human. You just gotta fake it 'til you make it. It's OK and you will get through it. Things are not that deep. It's not that deep. And like, we're all gonna die.

[Everyone laughs]

Megan: Something I've learned, especially being in KATSEYE and like being public, is to avoid and not let the hate and negativity of online get to me. Or get to us. I think it was such a huge thing to always check about what people were saying. There was so much positivity, but it's also hard when you're seeing so much positivity and there's like one hate comment and you're like hyperfixated on the hate comment. I feel like we all kind of had our own journey with letting the hate get to us way more than the positivity. For me specifically, I had to just like completely let go of everything because I would get so hyperfixated and then I'll dig myself into a hole, and then it would make me worse. It would like make me feel so much worse. And then it would make me not confident about myself and not confident about my skill or how I look. And I'd be like, OK, like what can I do? I don't understand why people are saying this, but just completely not caring has been the hardest lesson to learn. It's benefited me so much because it really takes over like your mind. It consumes you in a way that's so hard to get out of. So cutting it out so early has been so helpful.

Lara: I have one as well. I feel like we learned how to build this bubble around us as a group and not let anything get between us. Especially when we got picked to be KATSEYE, I think that we put a lot of work in to really getting to know each other and get to a place where we can genuinely, genuinely trust each other with anything. I know now we really are there and we're so tight-knit and so there are so many outside factors. I feel like a lot of people try to compare us to each other, pit us against each other, or just get between us. We have learned that we have this barrier around us and nobody can break that and get in between it. We're really strong together. And then also, I don't know how to say this without cursing [laugh], but, we are learning to not give the f--k. About anything. I feel like we're really learning to stop caring so much. Kind of like Megan said, because it's like poison. It's literally toxic. It's so easy to care about the wrong thing. I think that an artist shines the most when they stop caring so much about everything. Like you just like be you. We're learning to do that. It is really hard because like Dani said, we're perfectionists and we all definitely care a lot about everything. This is so new to us. So we're still navigating it and learning it, but I think by each day we get blessed. Which is extremely necessary. We're learning to just express ourselves and when we wanna fight for things, we're learning to fight for it. We're learning how to enjoy the good things and then block out the negativity.

When are we getting the "Touch" Jersey Club remix? We want it on Spotify!

Lara: [laugh] I want it on Spotify!

A KATSEYE one-year reunion is airing November 25 on YouTube at 7pm PT. Watch it below: