Estelle Fly is a romantic. Not in the rose-tinted, head-in-the-clouds sense—though she’d probably admit to a little of that too—but in the way she throws herself into life, fully and without hesitation. “Growing up, I really romanticised life,” she says. “I wanted to experience everything, so I would jump [into experiences] first and make sense of it later.”

That instinct has taken her far. Born Estelle Lim, she entered the industry as part of Singapore’s first anime idol group MYnT in 2010, before joining the Singaporean-Malaysian Japanese idol group Sea*A from 2011 until its disbandment in 2013. After returning to Singapore, she spent time as a flight attendant with Singapore Airlines—an experience that would quietly reshape her perspective—before making her solo debut in 2018. Since then, she’s built a career that spans content creation, hosting, and acting. Still, music remains her first love—the constant thread through every chapter.

“Each phase shaped me differently,” she reflects. “Being an idol taught me that chasing perfection for acceptance means nothing if you’re not authentic. Flying showed me that even the most beautiful places feel empty if you don’t have people to share them with. As a solo artist, I learned that support only goes so far—you need direction. And acting made me realise that flaws are what make us human, and often the most worth telling.”

These days, that once headlong romanticism has softened into something more grounded, more grateful. What’s changed isn’t that she’s stopped being a romantic—it’s that her romanticism for life has taken on a deeper appreciation. “It’s no longer about chasing what the world can give me,” she shares. “It’s about appreciating how lucky I am to experience it at all.”

You can hear that shift across her debut EP, ZONE. The four-track release marks the first time in her career that Estelle had the architecture to build a full narrative. Her earlier releases existed as self-contained singles; this was markedly different. “I finally had the space to shape a full story and really control how everything connects,” she shares. She also stepped deliberately outside familiar territory, collaborating with producers from around the world rather than leaning on the local networks she’d built. “That really opened up the sound and pushed me into new places creatively.”

What she didn’t anticipate was how deeply personal the EP would become. Midway through its creation, she went through a breakup—something she’s speaking about publicly for the first time. “I’ve always written about love because I believe it’s one of the most powerful forces we experience,” she says. “But going through it in real time—the highs, the lows, the confusion—made everything feel a lot more raw and immediate. What was unexpected was how isolating it felt.” She pauses. “I was in one of the busiest, most exciting periods of my life, surrounded by incredible people, but internally, I felt very alone.”

That emotional dissonance became the EP’s creative engine. “I found myself building these fantasy worlds as a form of escape,” she explains. “Sonically, I started treating the music almost like an OST to those emotions. Each track became its own emotional landscape—its own version of that inner world.” The result is an EP that functions as both confession and architecture: a record of what she was going through, and of how she survived it.

The title track is ZONE‘s thesis statement—fierce, upbeat, entirely in command. It captures what Estelle calls “the fighter in me,” the energy she brings to every stage. But it’s Messy that surprised her most. “It explores a side of me I hadn’t really tapped into before. It’s a bit more playful, a bit more daring.” The response to the track has opened a door she intends to walk through. “There’s more in that direction to explore,” she hints.

Much of the EP’s energy centres on sensuality as a form of power rather than performance—a distinction Estelle traces back to the characters she idolised growing up: Lola Bunny, Ada Wong from Resident Evil, Silk from Marvel Comics. “They all shared qualities that are universally recognised as feminine and attractive—confidence, control, a strong sense of self. What I didn’t understand then was how deeply empowering those qualities actually were.” Today, that understanding feels fully internalised. “It’s not about performing sensuality anymore. It’s about being comfortable in my own skin and owning my energy.”

She’s candid about the fact that this confidence didn’t come easily. “I think people sometimes assume things have come quite naturally to me. But I dealt with a lot of insecurities—being teased, feeling like I had to prove my worth, constantly trying to understand where I stood.” She holds the thought. “For a long time, I didn’t move through life with the confidence people might assume I had. A lot of it was built over time, through experiences that forced me to look at how I see myself versus how others see me. They see the end result. They don’t always see the process that shaped it.”

Estelle is measured when the conversation turns to Singapore’s music scene. Last year, she was announced as part of the lineup for Waterbomb Festival Singapore, performing on the same day as K-pop legends 2NE1. The social media reaction to the announcement was telling: comments flooded in questioning who the local acts even were. When one user point-blanked asked “Who is Estelle Fly?”, the singer replied simply: “Come and find out!”

She isn’t discouraged. If anything, she’s energised by a younger generation increasingly willing to show up for homegrown artists. The real barrier, she says, is structural. “It’s not that Singaporeans don’t want to support local artists. It’s that we need to make them more visible. Once people see how talented and driven our artists are, the support naturally follows.” With ZONE, she wants to prove that local pop can be globally competitive without sacrificing its personal core. “Every release contributes to how [local pop] is perceived,” she says. “I see it as space to shape something.”

That ambition is as much personal as it is collective. The idea of building rather than chasing runs quietly beneath everything she’s doing now—new music due in the second half of the year, live performances, and an acting project she’s staying tight-lipped about. For someone who has always been forward-moving, always evolving, the lesson she’s learning is how to stay still long enough to appreciate where she already is. “I think I’m still learning how to exist without feeling like I always have to become something next,” she admits. “But I feel more grounded now. I don’t have everything figured out, but I’m okay with that. I trust myself more. Back then, I was searching in the dark. Now, I’m building.”

Photography Stefan Khoo
Creative Direction & Styling Kelly Hsu
Hair and Makeup Manisa Tan, using Dior Beauty and Revlon Singapore
Photography Assistant Alif
Styling Assistant Adielle Hong
Hair and Makeup Assistant Mandy Yeo