Will Mandy Moore Ever Return To Making Pop Music? Here's What She Said

While she is mostly known as an actor these days, Mandy Moore was also once a pop music star. Original fans of the "This Is Us" star may be wondering if she will ever grace us with another major pop record again. While she has confirmed that she's still interested in music, she emphasized in an interview with Andy Cohen that a return to her pop star days is unlikely.

In the May 2026 SiriusXM interview in question, Cohen asked Moore about a potential comeback, framing it around Hilary Duff's return to pop music. Moore explained that it simply was not her calling. "I feel like that would be fun, perhaps. I just feel like Hilary is so incredible. She's made to be a pop star. That is just not my bag. ... I'm 42."

Moore further explained, "I've made a couple records — the last one was like four years ago — but my husband's a musician, and I make music with him, and it's just decidedly a smaller audience, like theaters and clubs." The husband in question is Taylor Goldsmith, who is the lead singer of the band Dawes. The two have collaborated on multiple songs over the years, including "Finding You Backwards," a 2022 song made for the Amazon romantic comedy film "I Want You Back."

Despite the major transition to acting, it appears Mandy Moore's first love was music. From a young age, she has been involved in music and performing arts, landing her first record deal in 1999 when she was only 15 years old. She would release her debut single, "Candy," in that same year, as well as her debut album, "So Real."

After that initial album, however, Moore moved away from making pop music. In a 2002 Billboard interview, she emphasized that, for her self-titled second album, she wanted to make something very different from the bubblegum pop that she burst onto the scene with. "While I was making this album, I decided that it was time for me to move away from that," she said. "No more dancers, no more singing to tracks. I got tired of that in a big way."

Moore would continue to move away from pop. Her fourth album, "Wild Hope," incorporated a more acoustic and folk sound that has been present in her music ever since. Moore has released seven studio albums to date, with her last album (at the time of this writing), "In Real Life," being released in 2022. While fans should probably let go of any hope for another "Candy" pop hit, it is clear that Moore still loves singing and songwriting.