Rebecca Black Gives Her First Interview Since “Friday”-mania Began

Rebecca Black, the 13-year-old singer behind viral megahit “Friday,” has given her first interview since the song exploded in online popularity last week. Speaking to The Daily Beast, she cleared up a number of misconceptions about how the song came to be:

•Black did not write the lyrics herself: They were written by Ark Music Factory, the vanity record label for young musicians. “A few times, when I heard some of the lyrics, I was like, ‘That doesn’t make sense,’” [Black’s mother Georgina] Kelly recalled. “Rebecca said, ‘I sang it as they wrote it, Mom.’ So I didn’t micromanage it.”

•Though she’s currently making bank off of “Friday” on iTunes, where it cracked the Top 100 singles chart, Black did not get paid by Ark Music to make the song: Rather, her mother paid Ark $2,000 for a package which included their “produc[ing] an accompanying video in a bid to make a splash on YouTube.”

•Black has not liked all of the Internet attention she has received so far, which has included mainstream publications asking if “Friday” was ‘the worst song of all time.’ “At times, it feels like I’m being cyberbullied,” she said.

Black is scheduled to appear on Good Morning America and On-Air With Ryan Seacrest in the near future to tell more of her story; she also says she plans to record an acoustic “Friday” “to showcase her vocal range in a non-Auto-Tune environment.”

Related: “Friday”-style song lyric generator.

(via The Daily Beast)