Dasha Says She Was &x27;Such a Mess&x27; During Peak Success of Breakthrough Single &x27;Austin&x27;: &x27;I Didn&x27;t Recognize Myself&x27; Rachel DeSantisFri, March 27, 2026 at 7:33 PM UTC 0 Dasha on Taste of Country NightsCredit: Taste of Country/YouTube Dasha revealed her viral hit "Austin" left her feeling disconnected from herself during its massive success Writing her emotional song "Oh, Anna!" helped her reconnect with her identity after struggling with sudden fame "Austin" became her first charting single, peaking at No.
Dasha Says She Was 'Such a Mess' During Peak Success of Breakthrough Single 'Austin': 'I Didn't Recognize Myself'
Rachel DeSantisFri, March 27, 2026 at 7:33 PM UTC
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Dasha on Taste of Country NightsCredit: Taste of Country/YouTube -
Dasha revealed her viral hit "Austin" left her feeling disconnected from herself during its massive success
Writing her emotional song "Oh, Anna!" helped her reconnect with her identity after struggling with sudden fame
"Austin" became her first charting single, peaking at No. 18 and hitting 1 billion Spotify streams in November
Dasha is opening up about the unexpected toll her sudden fame took after the breakout success of her single "Austin."
The country star, 26, appeared on Taste of Country Nights to talk about the origins of her emotional song "Oh, Anna!," and revealed that it came from a place of feeling out of touch with herself amid the whirlwind of "Austin," which went viral on TikTok and soared up the charts in 2024.
"I was such a mess. I was not doing hot. It was like, in the peak of 'Austin' time, and you have to understand, all my dreams were coming true," she said. "This was insane. However, what I didn't account for was how much I would lose myself, not giving myself enough time to just be normal and do normal things."
Dasha (born Anna Dasha Novotny) said she was "never home" for more than a year, and felt as though she wasn't properly "acclimated" to life on the celebrity circuit.
"It just wrecked me. I didn't recognize myself. I didn't recognize my personality or my sense of humor," she said. "I couldn't figure out what I wanted to wear. Because I just lost that center north star that I've always had with myself. It was really scary."
Sitting down to write "Oh, Anna!" eventually helped Dasha connect with herself once again. The star said she went in for a writing session with Chris LaCorte, Emily Weisband and Hillary Lindsey, and they expected to write a "party banger." That's not quite what happened.
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"I just literally broke down. I broke down. I cried the entire session and I talked about how I missed myself and we cracked the code and wrote this song about little me," she said. "And writing that song I was like, 'I can get her back. All I have to do is just channel what made me happy as a kid.'"
Dasha in West Yorkshire, UK in August 2024.Credit: Shutterstock
Dasha said she considers "Oh, Anna!," which came out in July, "the most vulnerable song" she's ever released.
A music video for the tune features home videos of Dasha as a child over poignant lyrics like, "I feel more like a scared little kid than I ever did back then/I need you to come back a little, come back a little/Make me that girl again/Oh, Anna."
"Austin" was released in November 2023 off her second album What Happens Now?, and went mega-viral on TikTok. The song became Dasha's first charting single, peaking at No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100, and she performed it everywhere from the CMT Music Awards to the Grand Ole Opry.
In November, the song hit 1 billion streams on Spotify, becoming just the second solo female country song to do so.
"It kind of feels like I'm being pranked sometimes because this is my first hit song," she told PEOPLE at the time. "This is my first moment, and I recognize how rare and f---ing insane this is. You don't usually get this for your first one."
on People
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Entertainment
Published: March 27, 2026 at 03:45PM on Source: PRIME TIME
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