Bebe Rexha Is Independent, Unfiltered and Running This Era Herself
Image: TODAY
Bebe Rexha’s Dirty Blonde era keeps rolling — and this time the promo choo-choo pulled right into Rockefeller Plaza. Fresh off taking the stage for NBC’s TODAY Citi Concert Series, Rexha headed inside Studio 1A to talk about the genre-bending album, her new life as an independent artist and what it feels like to finally be steering the machine herself.
We have been riding with Dirty Blonde since it arrived in June, and the project makes even more sense when Rexha talks about the freedom behind it. After years inside the major-label system, she described independence as intimidating at first — but ultimately freeing.
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Enter the Dirty Blonde Era
Bebe Rexha is doing this chapter on her own terms. Stream the album, then dig into the physical release and the pop catalog behind the new era.
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Dirty Blonde, released June 12, is Rexha’s first album as a fully independent artist and her fourth studio album overall. The 13-track project moves through dance, pop and club-heavy territory while giving Rexha considerably more room to make the record on her own creative terms.
That freedom was the heart of her TODAY conversation. Rexha explained that leaving the major-label machine made her nervous, but also gave her something she had been craving: the ability to make decisions for herself. “I felt so free,” she said during the interview. “I get to do things my own way.”
Image: TODAY
And this was not just an album plug squeezed between commercial breaks. Rexha also looked back at the career turns that got her here, including the importance of her family and the moment Eminem’s “The Monster” — which she co-wrote — helped change the trajectory of her career.
The appearance came immediately after Rexha performed outside on the TODAY Plaza as part of the 2026 Citi Concert Series. It is a fitting victory lap for an artist promoting a record built around creative control: big morning-show stage, major television exposure, but this time with Bebe herself much closer to the driver’s seat.
Dirty Blonde includes “New Religion” with Faithless and “Sad Girls” with David Guetta, along with “Hysteria,” “Tokyo,” “Çike Çike,” “Time” and the gloriously titled “$.H.I.T.” The record also arrived as a visual album, extending the whole project beyond the usual stream-it-and-move-on release cycle.
For Rexha, though, the bigger story may be what happens after the album. Independence is easy to romanticize from the outside; building the next act without the infrastructure of a major label is another thing entirely. Watching her talk about the nerves and the freedom in the same breath makes this era feel less like a reinvention gimmick and more like an artist figuring out exactly how much control she wants — and realizing the answer might be all of it.
Watch Bebe Rexha Talk Dirty Blonde and Becoming an Independent Artist on TODAY
Following her Citi Concert Series performance, Rexha joins TODAY inside Studio 1A to discuss Dirty Blonde, leaving the major-label system, her family’s support and the early career breakthrough of “The Monster.”
Source: TODAY; Bebe Rexha / EMPIRE.
