Harry Daniels, the 22-year-old internet provocateur who became famous by ambushing celebrities with unsolicited serenades, says the joke may finally have run its course.
“In some ways, I no longer view myself as a person,” Daniels tells The Hollywood Reporter over an omelet at a crowded Hollywood diner. “Harry Daniels is different. I’m not Harry anymore. I’m a commodity. I’m a product.”
The product proved remarkably effective. Daniels has sung Lana Del Rey’s “National Anthem” to Joe Biden, crooned Camila Cabello to Anne Hathaway (he’s not sure why; it just came to him) and performed a Flo Rida song for Josh Hutcherson. He estimates that his Hutcherson encounter alone — a “perfect storm” of internet memes colliding — drew between 150 million and 200 million views across platforms, a personal one-video record. Bowen Yang spoofed him on Saturday Night Live. Anna Wintour, confronted with the act, simply walked away.
Daniels arrives in a Poison Candy Apple T-shirt, a friend’s clothing brand. Even under the harsh lighting of a greasy spoon, he looks younger than 22, with a full, warm smile and large hazel eyes that blink either too often or not quite enough.
He grew up on Long Island studying the mechanics of pop stardom. At 12, he was taking the train into Manhattan alone to attend showcases and waiting outside venues to meet singers. By 10th grade, he says, he was close to repeating the year because he kept skipping class for album signings.
When COVID-19 moved school onto Zoom, Daniels felt prepared. “COVID for me was just kind of the world catching up to what I’d already been doing,” he says.
The serenades began at a signing for Sabrina Carpenter, whom Daniels had met so many times he had run out of things to say to her.
“I was like, ‘Man, I got nothing. I haven’t even heard this album yet. So fuck it, I’m just going to sing for her,’” he recalls. Daniels expected viewers to understand that he was mocking the earnestness of the celebrity encounter. They did not, which turned out to be much better for business.
The format broke open outside a Tommy Hilfiger fashion show in September 2023, when Daniels sang to a procession of arriving celebrities and gossip site The Shade Room reposted the resulting compilation. The next day, Doja Cat recognized him outside a venue and requested a performance. That video crossed 10 million views. Soon Kate Spade New York was paying him to sing to sales associates, major agencies were courting him and RCA Records was sending him to Coachella to make videos with its artists.
Daniels was never especially troubled by the widespread irritation his encounters caused. He considered the confusion over whether he was an earnest fan, an obnoxious clout-chaser or a performance artist essential to the exercise.
“The worst thing people can do is have no opinion on something you’re doing,” he says. “If people hate something so much, there’s passion behind it. If they love it, there’s passion. But if they’re indifferent, no one really cares.”
But the persona has become harder to live with. Daniels says an actor “of some repute” whom he was dating was embarrassed by the videos and unwilling to acknowledge their relationship publicly. Of their breakup, Daniels concedes: “I was deemed bad for business, if you will.”
His professional relationships have also shifted. Daniels has parted ways with UTA, which signed him amid agency interest around Coachella 2024. He came to believe the agency did not know how to turn his enormous audience into revenue. Daniels says the relationship ended after he confronted his representatives over what he claims were 325 million profile views during Coachella 2025 without a resulting brand deal.
“I said to them, ‘You need to tell me not one brand, not one advertiser, not one person has reached out?’” Daniels recalls. According to him, the answer came back: “We don’t think it’s a good fit anymore.” His disappointment soon became defiance. “They thought I was going to be another Jake Shane,” he says. “I’m not another Jake Shane. I’m the first Harry Daniels.”
A representative for UTA didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.
For now, Daniels is shelving the shtick, shifting his base from Los Angeles to New York and concentrating on self-produced music, including his debut single “Pull Up,” a fully serious pop effort. He wrote and produced the song himself, composing by ear on his laptop’s built-in keyboard.
The artists he cites as models include Ethel Cain, Wolf Alice, Kacey Musgraves and Mk.gee, musicians he has seen perform what he calls “pure” shows without choreography or spectacle. “It’s just them and the instrument and the music,” he says. “That is ultimately the dream.”
“I did amazing things,” he notes. “I made it to practically every A-list event. I was going to parties with Leonardo DiCaprio and DNC fundraisers. It was fucking Timothée Chalamet and I sitting there, and him being like, ‘You’re a trailblazer. I could never do what you do.’ It was all this crazy shit.”
But the attention, he says, came from something that was never his main focus: “It’s always been the music.” Daniels knows the pivot may fail. “If no one takes it serious, it’s a complete failure and it’s a complete bomb,” he says. “It’s fine. It’s my Megalopolis, if you will. This is what I do. This is all I know how to do.”
Labels, he says, like the songs but question whether they will sell. “Pull Up” has garnered only 8,600 views on YouTube since debuting one month ago. Daniels does not share their concern. “When I started out making TikToks, no one believed in it,” he says. “It was a complete disaster, a complete nightmare, but I saw something in it. It’s the same way I feel about my music. In all humility, I’m a genius at marketing.”
Pressed on how serious he is about retiring the hit-and-run warbling that made him famous, Daniels pauses.
“I might,” he says. “I might not.”
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