Katseye was built from 120,000 applicants using the K-pop trainee method
More than 120,000 people applied, twenty reached a televised contest, and six were chosen in November 2023. Katseye, a Los Angeles girl group with members from four countries, is the product of a joint experiment by Hybe and Geffen to take Korean idol training to an American audience.
Auditions started in 2022 in South Korea, the United States, Japan and Britain. The twenty finalists trained for a year in Los Angeles under Korean idol methods before competing on The Debut: Dream Academy. The winners were Sophia Laforteza from the Philippines, Yoonchae Jeung from South Korea, Manon Bannerman from Switzerland, and Americans Daniela Avanzini, Lara Raj and Megan Skiendiel. Several already had careers: Avanzini had appeared on America's Got Talent, and Jeung had been a K-pop trainee since 2020. A Netflix documentary by Nadia Hallgren followed the whole process.
The name comes from cat's eye, a variety of the gemstone chrysoberyl whose light seems to shift with the viewing angle, standing for six very different personalities. Lara suggested swapping the C for a K. The group's look leans heavily on Y2K fashion, which has brought campaigns with Fendi's Baguette bag, Gap's low-rise jeans, Coach and even the Filipino fast food chain Jollibee.
Their first single, Debut, came out in June 2024, and Touch took off that September when its choreography became a TikTok dance challenge. The first EP, SIS (Soft Is Strong), was modest, but Gnarly in April 2025 divided listeners and still gave them their first Billboard Hot 100 entry. Beautiful Chaos, the next EP, reached the Billboard 200's top ten, and its single Gabriela, a telenovela-styled song co-written by Charli XCX and likened to a modern Jolene, earned a Grammy nomination alongside a Best New Artist nod.
Their third EP, Wild, became their first chart-topping album release in 2026, the year they swept their three American Music Awards and played to roughly 100,000 people at Lollapalooza Argentina. The same year Manon and then Sophia stepped back for health reasons, and the group's schedule rolled on around them.
Source: Katseye
