Claire Cottrill (born August 18, 1998), known professionally as Clairo, is an American recording artist from Carlisle, Massachusetts who wrote "Pretty Girl" (2017), a lo-fi-produced song that attracted over 26 million views on YouTube. She credited her sudden popularity to the website's algorithm system. Claire was born the daughter of Geoff Cottrill, a marketing executive who has held major positions at companies such as Coca-Cola. Under the names Clairo and DJ Baby Benz, Claire started posting music to Bandcamp while in high school before beginning to post covers and songs in addition to DJ mixes of rap music on SoundCloud. She also maintained a YouTube channel where she would post covers and short films. According to her, "Pretty Girl" was inspired by 1980s pop music, and that although she was tagged with the "bedroom pop" label, it was not her intention to make that style of music. After the popularity of "Pretty Girl", Clairo signed a record contract with the help of her family's connections with The Fader magazine and her presentation of herself as a "do-it-yourself" artist was questioned amid some online controversy. In 2018, she released her debut record Diary 001 on Fader Label.