𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

You might know her as a pop star, endorsed by everyone from Taylor Swift to Sam Fender, but Holly Humberstone has a secret double life.

In her spare time, the singer-songwriter is literally a cat burglar.

“We’ve stolen one of our neighbours’ cats by accident,” she laughs, in a Zoom call from her fixer-upper in New Cross, south-east London.

“He’s a tiny little black cat who’s come into our garden and simply chosen us.”

Under the slightest scrutiny, however, her story crumbles like a biscuit in a hot cup of tea.

“OK, we’ve been coercing him into the house with treats,” she admits. “He’s just so cute.

“But we’re not trying to keep him. We literally push him out every night.”

Humberstone’s excuse for this feline felony is that, last year, her parents sold her childhood home in Lincolnshire, external and moved to Wales – taking her pets with them.

One, a cat called Tsuki, had even been immortalised in the song Lucy as a confidante who listens to her problems but “never judges”.

“Oh, she knows some secrets!” laughs the singer. “I’m so glad she can’t talk.”

“We actually tried to bring her to London with us, but she’s a countryside cat and she hated it so much. We had to send her to Wales where she can be free and frolic.”

Her parents’ relocation was disruptive for the human Humberstones, too.

Their house, a “freezing cold, falling down” property 20 minutes outside of Grantham, played a huge part in the singer’s success.

Her early EPs were all written there, inspiring the “wonky sonics” of her indie-leaning pop sound. The 2021 single Haunted House is even dedicated to the “friendly” spirits who inhabited the property.

“It’s a place I always felt I could go back to, to remind myself of who I am,” she says.

Instead, she spent 2025 “packing up 23 years of stuff my family and I had accumulated”, from her old ballet shoes and poetry books to forgotten bits of jewellery.