For young female pop stars, dropping choice F-bombs in songs proves liberating and profitable
Gayle was 6 years old when CeeLo Green released the gleefully profane "F— You" in 2010 — old enough to be thrilled by the song's signature four-letter obscenity, young enough to think she might get away with performing it at an elementary school talent show.
"I told my mom I wanted to do it, and she looked it up and was like, 'Oh my God — no,'" the singer, now 17, says with a laugh.
A decade and change later, Gayle (born Taylor Gayle Rutherford) is the one setting off parents' alarm bells with "abcdefu," her gloriously caustic grunge-pop smash in which she tells a feckless ex, "F— you and your mom and your sister and your job/ And your broke-ass car and that s— you call art." Inescapable over the last few months on TikTok and Instagram, the song reached a new peak of No. 3 last week on Billboard's Hot 100; since it came out in August, it's racked up more than half a billion streams on Spotify and YouTube.
