From wisdom teeth to backless dresses, we can’t get enough
BY KATE CANNING, IMAGE VIA INSTAGRAM (@CMATBABY)
Bisexual icon and Irish singer-songwriter CMAT has had a fantastic year in 2025. CMAT released her third album Euro-Country in August and had a stellar summer performing at festivals such as Glastonbury and Primavera.
She is set to begin her postponed Euro-Country tour this November, so we thought we’d take a look at some of her most iconic moments.
Backless dress at the 2024 BRIT Awards
In 2024, CMAT was nominated for her first BRIT award for Best International Artist following the release of her second album, Crazymad, For Me. She took the red carpet by storm, stunning in a low-cut backless dress that stirred up controversy and prompted discussion surrounding how different body types are still more accepted than others. CMAT responded to the controversy with an Instagram post captioned “I told you I was good craic x”, proving herself as an icon.
Tate McRae cover
As part of her rollout of her most recent album, Euro-Country, CMAT featured on Radio 1’s Live Lounge with her own CMAT-ified version of Sports Car by Tate McRae. Accompanied by her band, this arrangement of the song included instruments more closely associated with country music such as a lap steel and a fiddle, alongside CMAT’s distinctive vocals. Her ability to make this song fit seamlessly into her own country-pop style is a testament to her versatility as an artist and her love of genre-bending.
Take A Sexy Picture Of Me
In May of this year, CMAT released her second single from Euro-Country. Titled Take A Sexy Picture Of Me, the song is a direct response from CMAT to the body shaming she has received while being in the public eye.
“With the internet, every woman is now in the public eye. And no matter who you are, or what you look like, somebody will take umbrage with the fact that you even exist, and there’s no escaping it,” CMAT explained. “‘Take a Sexy Picture of Me’ was born out of that, because I held back for so long; not out of frustration or sadness for myself, because I AM in the public eye, but I realised it’s actually like this for every woman.”
The song took TikTok by storm, with creator Sam Morris choreographing a dance to the second verse of the song. CMAT has since encouraged crowds to perform this dance alongside her during her festival shows over the summer, with fans dubbing it “the woke macarena”.
Bringing her wisdom teeth to the red carpet
This October, CMAT unfortunately had to postpone her Euro-Country UK and Ireland tour because of an infected wisdom tooth. As a result of this, she was also unable to perform at the 2025 Mercury Prize, where her album was shortlisted for the second time in two years. This didn’t stop her from bringing her usual hilarity to the carpet though, and in an interview with BBC Radio 6, she produced the wisdom teeth in question from her bejewelled Kerrygold Butter purse, which is a sentence that is positively entirely unique to CMAT.
Her trans allyship
CMAT has proven her trans allyship time and time again. Earlier this year, following the UK Supreme Court’s ruling to exclude trans women from the definition of what a “woman” is, CMAT took to her Instagram stories stating, “Imagine dedicating your life to being so wrong” and calling the ruling “Big f***ing loser behaviour.”
Most recently, CMAT has also taken to Instagram stories to call out fellow musician Róisín Murphy after Róisín claimed that trans and non-binary people were “never real”.
CMAT stated, “She is very publicly acting like a bully and is absolutely not a voice to be listened to or trusted when it comes to trans lives” before also sharing that “today seems like as fabulous a day as ever to donate to TENI, Trans Equality Network Ireland.”
The use of her platform to be such a vocal and unrelenting ally cements CMAT as a queer icon.
You can catch CMAT on her Euro-Country tour, starting in Nottingham on 14 November.
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