Feel the Rain on Your Skin! Welcome to the Natasha Bedingfield Renaissance

Thanks to Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney (are they or aren’t they?!), suddenly, we’re all belting “Feel the rain on your skin!” again. But if you’ve been screaming it since 2004, then Natasha Bedingfield’s renaissance moment is no surprise, proving she’s always known how to soundtrack life’s defining moments. On the latest episode of The Squeeze, the British pop darling—now a wise, world-traveled woman—sits down to reflect on what those lyrics meant then and what they mean now.

Natasha Bedingfield Stops By ‘The Squeeze’

From church girl to global pop star

You might remember Unwritten as the ultimate coming-of-age anthem, but did you know Natasha Bedingfield originally wrote it for her younger brother?

“I remember that age where a lot of people were just always asking me, what are you gonna be when you grow up?” she said. “That felt like this very crippling pressure. And me being like, no, this is my story. I hold that pen. You know, I can write it how I want, and I want this to be an adventure book.”

Yes, that’s right—your favorite karaoke scream-along started as a love letter to a 14-year-old boy. “It was just kinda all the things I wish I’d heard at that age,” she shared.

Natasha and her siblings grew up homeschooled in England after their parents relocated from New Zealand. They were raised in a soulful church community filled with music. “We went to this amazing soulful Black church… they encouraged young people to do music,” she recalled. “My brother would get up and rap, and everyone was so encouraging.” (And if you just realized that her brother is Daniel Bedingfield of “Gotta Get Thru This” fame—yep. Your early 2000s nostalgia sensors are correct.)

But Natasha wasn’t always the confident performer we see today. “I liked wearing my pajamas all day,” she admitted of her introverted teen years. “But at 12, I just started to have this burning desire to write stuff. All my journal entries were like, ‘I’ve got something to say, but I don’t know how to say it.’”

Life after “Pocketful of Sunshine”

It wasn’t all sunshine and Grammys. Natasha opened up about the darker side of fame—something she calls “a washing machine” of intensity. “Nothing can prepare you for the stress of success,” she confessed. “Your schedule is so crazy… I have a lot of memory loss from that first year.”

But through it all, Natasha stayed grounded in her purpose: “I want to be famous for what I do and not for what I wear or who I’m dating.”

These days, Natasha’s finding power in being real—not perfect. She loves how Gen Z is rejecting filters and showing up as themselves. “Twenty years ago, when I released my stuff, it was about creating this perfect illusion of what a pop star is. Now it’s a lot more playful.”

From the stage to motherhood

Becoming a mom in 2017 fundamentally shifted Natasha’s perspective. “Looking into your child’s eyes and seeing some resemblance of yourself—it made me love myself more,” she said. “It helped me think of myself as a child too. Like, how do I mother myself?”

She also revealed she experienced prenatal depression—a rarely-discussed mental health challenge. “I didn’t even know that was a thing,” she said. “It was the first time I truly understood what depression feels like. It’s not about being sad—it’s chemical.”

True to form, she’s channeling these struggles into art. Natasha says she’s writing songs about these experiences, exploring themes of healing, identity, and motherhood. “There’s just never a shortage to write about.”

That Unwritten revival (and yes, she noticed)

So how does Natasha feel about her signature hit’s sudden return to the cultural zeitgeist? She’s every bit as delighted as we are.

“The director told me it was in the movie a lot, but I didn’t realize how much until I saw it,” she said with a laugh. “They had the actors singing Unwritten in every scene!”

So what makes that song so timeless? Natasha thinks it’s the freedom it represents: “Everyone sings it releasing their inhibitions, absolutely not caring how they sound. And that’s the best.”

As for the pressure to create another Unwritten or Pocketful of Sunshine? Natasha’s not interested in chasing formulas. “AI can make perfect pop songs now. What people want is imperfection, humanity, something real. I want to write things that crack open the truth.”

Natasha Bedingfield may be best known for the ultimate YOLO anthem, but her true legacy might be how she’s embraced each chapter—highs, lows, and stretch marks. “I think creativity is the cure for anxiety,” she said. “And I just want to keep creating.”