Becky Hill says the career milestones that defined her 20s did not reflect how she actually experienced the decade.
The 32-year-old singer told The Guardian that, aside from the music she was creating, she “hated every minute” of those years. Her public rise came alongside serious personal trauma, instability within the music industry and a persistent feeling that she had not fully earned the success attached to her name.
Hill entered her 20s trying to move beyond her association with The Voice UK and eventually became one of Britain’s most recognizable dance vocalists. Her career brought chart success, major collaborations and industry awards, while privately she spent years in therapy working on the impostor syndrome that followed her through those achievements.
Her priorities have shifted as she prepares to release her third album, Rebecca. Hill says she is now more interested in writing about the pressures she actually experiences than building songs around what she thinks audiences or the industry expect from her.
Hill Was Sexually Assaulted Before Losing Her Record Deal Hours Later
Hill was 21 when she said a friend raped her during a period when she was already struggling to establish herself professionally.
She recalled attending a songwriting session shortly afterward and telling the three men in the room what had happened as she tried to process the assault by speaking about it.
“A few hours later, I was being pulled into a meeting with my management team to be told I had no label,” Hill told The Guardian.
The two events came during a year she now associates with some of the most difficult experiences of her adulthood. Around the same period, Hill began having more success as a featured vocalist but struggled with the feeling that the records belonged primarily to the producers whose names appeared alongside hers.
She also met Charlie Gardner during her 20s. The pair later separated, reconciled and became engaged in 2022 before marrying in Cornwall in September 2025.
‘The Voice’ Gave Hill the Contacts That Started Her Career
Hill was 17 and working two bar jobs when she auditioned for the first series of The Voice UK with John Legend’s “Ordinary People.” She joined Jessie J’s team and reached the semifinals.
Living in London and meeting people in the industry mattered more to her than winning the competition. Hill said she left the show with the contacts she needed to begin pursuing music professionally.
Her first U.K. No. 1 arrived in 2014 when she featured on Oliver Heldens’ “Gecko (Overdrive).” Official Charts credits Hill as the first contestant from The Voice UK to reach No. 1 on the British singles chart.
Collaborations with Rudimental, David Guetta, Chase & Status, Joel Corry and other dance artists followed. Hill’s own albums later reached the U.K. top 10, while Believe Me Now? peaked at No. 3 in 2024.
She won the BRIT Award for Dance Act in 2022 and again in 2023, becoming the category’s winner in consecutive years.
Those achievements did not eliminate her fear that the career could disappear. Hill said she has been in therapy since she was 22 and spent roughly a decade working on an internal voice that continued questioning whether she belonged in the industry.
Even at the beginning of 2026, she found herself imagining that music might stop providing a living and considering what qualification she could pursue next. Hill joked that she had thought about becoming an electrician, although she doubted she would last long around live wiring.
Hill Bought Homes for Her Family Before Buying One for Herself
After securing another recording and publishing deal, Hill used part of her earnings to reduce the financial pressure facing her parents.
She bought them a house and contributed money toward their pensions, telling them she wanted them to stop working. Her parents later repaid her for the property despite Hill telling them that they did not need to.
Hill also purchased a house for her brother’s family while she was still renting her own flat. She said making sure her relatives had stable housing mattered more to her at the time than getting herself onto the property ladder.
Her brother later joined her touring operation as her security. Hill said he had previously served in the Marines from the age of 16 and now travels with her regularly for work.
‘Rebecca’ Prioritizes What Hill Wants to Write About
Hill has described Rebecca as “curated chaos,” combining the dance and drum-and-bass foundation of her previous work with heavier electronic sounds, guitars and alternative influences.
She told NME that watching other women in pop embrace more individual versions of themselves encouraged her to push further in her own direction.
“More! More! More!,” released in May, focuses on the pressure to keep demanding additional success even when relentless ambition becomes exhausting. Hill said her songwriting has increasingly moved toward subjects such as work, society and the expectations she places on herself.
She is also less concerned about whether the new material reproduces the commercial results of her previous records. Hill told The Guardian that she could accept the album being smaller commercially because she is proud of what she made.
Rebecca contains 14 tracks and is scheduled for release on November 13 through Polydor and Eko Records, according to its Apple Music listing.