Stella Lefty Artistfacts

August 6, 2006
Stella Lefty is a singer-songwriter recognized for emotionally candid, first-person songwriting within country-pop spaces. Based in Los Angeles, some of her inspirations include Kacey Musgraves, Sam Hunt and Taylor Swift.
Stella Lefty grew up in Glencoe, a suburb of Chicago, and started playing guitar at age 5. As a child, she didn't write original songs straight away - instead, she would rewrite existing ones over their melodies.

"That was the first song I remember rewriting as a kid. When I was younger, I didn't know how to play anything, so I would rewrite songs that already existed," Lefty told journalist Spencyr Aronson. "I would rewrite 'Tim McGraw' and keep the melody, with a few changes."

It was Lefty's guitar teacher who helped her start writing her own original lyrics.
Her real surname is Lefkofsky. She is the daughter of Eric Lefkofsky, the billionaire co-founder of Groupon and founder and CEO of Tempus AI, a healthcare data company. Eric is known for regularly promoting his daughter's music on social media - including on LinkedIn. Stella has spoken openly about her relationship with her father, and the subject of family appears throughout her songwriting.
Lefty's debut single, "From Me to You - Demo," released in 2022, was written in the aftermath of losing her best friend Olivia to cancer. "When she passed away, I had no clue how to handle my emotions, so I turned to music," Lefty told 1234. "I started writing a song a day and really getting into the flow of things until 'from me to you' came together."

Olivia was a talented singer, and the song became Stella's way of processing grief and paying tribute to her.
Despite her passion for music, Stella Lefty attended Tulane University in New Orleans as a Public Health major, at her parents' insistence. It was during her sophomore year that she realized music was the only path she wanted to pursue.

"I didn't know anyone who was doing it, and it didn't seem like it was possible," Lefty told Spencyr Aronson. "But I think it was probably my sophomore year of college when I realized I didn't like anything else."

She graduated in the spring of 2024 and moved to Los Angeles shortly after.
After moving to LA, Stella Lefty lived in a group house in West Hollywood with a circle of fellow emerging artists that included Grace Enger and Sadie Jean. The house became a creative hub, and those connections shaped her early career in the city.
A first-listen recording of "Thinking 'bout You," posted on TikTok in December 2025, accumulated over 10.2 million views virtually overnight and turned the song into trending audio across the platform. It marked a turning point for Lefty; from a relatively unknown artist to one clocking over 400,000 streams a day in the space of weeks.
Lefty's "The Kill" plays in the horror film Scream 7, released in February 2026. The song - co-written with Laura Veltz and produced by Joe Reeves and Bogo - soundtracks the film's opening sequence.
"Boston," released in March 2026, and written with Grace Enger, contains an interpolation of Noah Kahan's 2022 hit "Stick Season." The connection runs deeper than a musical reference - Lefty's sound has frequently been compared to Kahan's folk-inflected style. The song debuted at #95 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 2026, marking Stella's first-ever chart appearance.
She's been known as Stella Lefty her whole life. "My uncle, my dad, my brothers, have gone by Lefty," she told Billboard. "It was the easiest thing and I didn't have to change anything."

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