9 Fun Facts You Never Knew About Singer-Songwriter Julia Michaels

Julia has a lot of favourite places around the world — that she's been lucky enough to visit because of touring. At an American Express Travel event, she told POPSUGAR that she especially loves France and Portugal and that both have excellent food.

Julia has spent years writing music for other artists, and "Issues" started out the same way as the rest of her songs for others do. "Then I realised this was my story, and it didn't make sense for someone else to sing it. It's about me," she told POPSUGAR. It became her first single as a solo artist.

At an industry event for American Express Travel in New York, Julia told POPSUGAR she invited a few of her biggest local fans to be in the audience to help calm her nerves. "I like knowing they're right there singing along with me," she said.

Julia started writing when she was very young. Her first major cowriting credit was for the Austin & Ally theme song on the Disney channel while she was still a teen — 17 to be exact.

Did you know Julia's written some huge songs for other artists? Her songwriting credits include "Sorry" by Justin Bieber, "Miss Movin' On" by Fifth Harmony, and "Slow Down" by Selena Gomez.

Julia treats her songwriting process differently depending on what kind of outcome she's looking for. When she's writing for someone else, she said she teams up with other people to get more perspectives, but that's not the case for her solo songs. "I tend to write alone when it's my own music," she said. "Someone can't write my memories for me; I have to do that."

Julia already has dates scheduled around the world, but she revealed to us that there are "some other cities that I don't think we've put out there yet — it's turned into a real world tour!"

Julia's been on tour as an opening act with iconic singers like Pink, Maroon 5, Keith Urban, Shawn Mendes, and Niall Horan. In 2019, she set out on her first headlining tour of her own. "For the past two years, we've been opening for other people, and this was the first time we had ever done anything for our fans and it's a completely different, unbelievably beautiful experience," she told POPSUGAR.

Julia was born in Iowa in 1993 and jokingly said that people always confuse it for other states. "I was born in Iowa, but people always confuse it with Ohio for some reason," she told POPSUGAR at the American Express Travel event. "I get Idaho a lot too, and I'm like, 'No, no, no, we're corn, not potatoes.'"