Nell Mescal has come out publicly and spoken about her sexuality for the first time in an interview with Gay Times. The Irish singer also confirmed that she is in a relationship with content creator and actor Madison Cawley, who has inspired some of her new music.

Earlier this month, Mescal released ‘Hers’, a heartfelt exploration of falling in love, surrender and the feeling of finally finding the right person. “It’s about quickly realising the walls you built up or the fear you had around falling in love and letting someone in, don’t exist when you meet the right person,” the singer explained at the time.

“It’s a love song about surrendering to the good stuff after spending too much time worrying it was never gonna find you.”

The track was inspired by her new relationship with Cawley, and after coming out to her family at Christmas (including her brother Paul Mescal), she was ready to communicate her identity with the world. 

Although she admitted to Gay Times, “It wasn’t really my plan to come out in this way or to be as public about it”, she added, “I’d only been dating men, and I was having a horrible experience and all my songs were sad. Then I met someone and instantly fell in love and was like, ‘Okay, so this is it. I’m going to come out now, and this is what my songs are going to be.’ It felt like the most natural thing to do.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Nell Mescal (@nellmescal)

Fans had been curious about the pair’s relationship for some time as they dropped hints on social media. Cawley boasts over 150,000 followers on TikTok and nearly 100,000 on Instagram, and is known for her viral comedy videos. In October, she’ll embark on a national tour, bringing The Maddie Show to Cork, Limerick and Dublin.

Mescal, on the other hand, is in the middle of supporting Holly Humberstone across Europe, including in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Cologne, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Hamburg, Berlin and Munich. The couple are no strangers to time apart, as before Cawley recently moved to London, they were in a long-distance relationship.

Nell Mescal explored this in a recent single, ‘Settles’, which offered a tender and emotionally resonant portrait of the situation.

“Settles is a love song about a long distance relationship where it feels like the time spent together is fleeting and that you always seem to be saying goodbye to each other at an airport,” she said. “It’s about the hope that one day the dust will settle, life will get less busy and the two of you will get to be together without any interruptions. It’s about reassurance, yearning, hope and loving someone from a distance.”