Doja Cat is ready for a break. After five studio albums and numerous Billboard Hot 100 hits, the rapper revealed in an Elle UK cover story published Wednesday (May 13) that she’s toying with the idea of spending a few years away from making music.

When discussing her busy schedule with the publication, Doja explained that in general, she prioritizes taking breaks to have time for her other passions, such as painting. “I demand time from my team,” she began. “They’ve helped me to find pockets between the really busy moments.”

“I think I want to take three years off,” she continued. “I want to just do whatever.”

On her to-do list at the moment are working on another mural and furnishing the upper level of her house, because she says “there’s been nothing in here for four years or five.”

Doja last dropped an album in 2025, reaching No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with Vie. She’s currently touring in support of the project, with her Tour Ma Vie World Tour kicking off in November and scheduled to last through the beginning of December.

After about a monthlong break, she’s gearing up to get back on the road with a show in Kigali, Rwanda.

Elsewhere in her conversation with Elle, Doja opened up about her signature sense of humor in her music. “Nicki Minaj, Drake, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Lil Wayne, these people are not comedians, but they are,” she explained. “They could write a stand-up set if they wanted to, but music is much more fun … I learned that from Jay-Z. I watched an interview where he said irony is incredibly important when it comes to hip-hop and rap.”

She also spoke about how her borderline personality disorder diagnosis — which she shared with fans for the first time this past March — affects her dating life. “If I have a boyfriend, and he leaves just to run
errands, my brain thinks he’s breaking up with me,” she told the publication. “And this is because my dad left me when I was little … I have to scrape against it and teach myself that that’s not happening to me. I’m safe.”

See Doja on the cover of Elle and photos from the shoot below.

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South Korean pop culture has become more fashionable than ever in the United States.

This is largely due to a phenomenon called the “Hallyu Wave,” which is described as a global surge in South Korean pop culture. This wave is distinct, and can be tracked in many aspects of pop culture, including music, TV and movies.

With music, we can see this through the widespread acceptance of K-pop, thanks in part to big acts such as PSY, BLACKPINK, BTS and others. In the world of film and TV, we’ve seen a South Korean culture boom with films including Bong Joon Ho’s 2019 hit Parasite, or the very popular TV shows Squid Game and Physical: 100.

From K-pop to comedy and drama, South Korean media has become a large part of American culture, with people seeking out content in droves. However, it can be hard to tune in to shows and movies from the country because some of this content is blocked in the United States due to regional locks. We’ll be showing U.S. viewers how to stream some of our favorite South Korean content online with ExpressVPN.

How to Watch South Korean Content in the U.S.

If you’re looking to get into more South Korean music-related TV shows, the easiest way to watch is to pair a streaming service with ExpressVPN. The service is a subscription-based VPN — or virtual private network — that can encrypt user data throughout the world wide web.

Masking your IP address protects users from data theft, while ExpressVPN is used to unblock geo-restricted streaming content. The service has dedicated IP addresses and servers from various locations all around the world that help hide your home location.

Here’s how it works: Download ExpressVPN here and set your location to South Korea or Japan, depending on the show you want to watch. With your location on the internet changed, you’ll be able to access international streaming services to watch our recommended shows and so much more.

After an annual billing of $78.18 for the first 28 months (regularly $363.72), ExpressVPN’s “Basic” plan breaks down to just $2.79 a month, with a service term of two years and four months — a nearly 80% savings. ExpressVPN also comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee for new users for all plans. This means that if you aren’t satisfied with your service within 30 days, you can request a refund and your original payment method will be credited with the full order amount.

ShopBillboard’s Top South Korean TV Show Picks

‘Produce 48’

stream on watcha + expressvpn

Produce 48 is a K-pop survival show that premiered in 2018. The show featured a ton of popular K-pop idols during their trainee days, such as Jang Wonyoung, who is now in IVE and Sakura Miyawaki, who is now in LE SSERAFIM.

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Produce 48 was a massive hit in both South Korea and abroad. The goal of the survival show was to create a K-pop group with chosen members voted on by viewers or “public producers.” The show is classified as the third season of Produce 101. Although it was only active for about two-and-a-half years, the once-popular girl group IZ*ONE was created from the show.

You can find Produce 48 on the South Korean streaming service WATCHA, which you can watch when paired with ExpressVPN.

‘HYBE x Geffen’s World Scout: The Final Piece’

Stream on ABEMA + Expressvpn

HYBE x Geffen’s World Scout: The Final Piece is a 2026 idol survival show created by South Korean Entertainment Company HYBE and Geffen Records. The goal of the show is to create a multinational girl group, such as KATSEYE.

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Much like Pop Star Academy on Netflix, HYBE x Geffen’s World Scout: The Final Piece is a new offering that popped up onto the scene. The show was created by South Korean Entertainment Company HYBE, best known for repping groups such as BTS, SEVENTEEN, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, ENHYPEN, LE SSERAFIM, NewJeans, BOYNEXTDOOR, TWS and ILLIT alongside Geffen Records.

The final episode aired on May 12, revealing the final members of SAINT SATINE. To tune into the competition program in the U.S., you’ll want to use ExpressVPN paired with free ad-supported Japanese streaming service ABEMA. The goal of this survival show is to create a multinational girl group. Both a panel of judges and tallied fan votes will determine the final member, joining Emily, Samara and Lexie.

‘Saturday Night Live Korea’

Stream on Coupang Play + Expressvpn

SNL Korea began in 2011 and ran until 2017. It was then rebooted by streaming platform Coupang Play in 2021, and has remained a hit with South Korean folks and viewers around the world.

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While news of a Saturday Night Live U.K. practically broke the internet, Saturday Night Live Korea has been quietly holding down the fort for years, bringing laughs to South Koreans and folks across the globe since its beginnings in 2011. The show originally ran until 2017, but was rebooted by South Korean streaming platform Coupang Play in 2021.

The show boasts a similar format with celebrity guests serving as hosts, sketches and performances by musical guests.

To watch the show, you’ll need to access Coupang Play with ExpressVPN. Once you access Coupang Play in South Korea, you’ll be able to watch both new and old episodes of SNL Korea. Meanwhile, plenty of K-pop acts have hosted SNL Korea in the past, including SHINee, TWICE, U-KISS, AOA and Red Velvet’s Wendy.

More on ExpressVPN

In addition, ExpressVPN has servers in more than 100 locations from around the world to mask your data and access streaming services in countries including England, Brazil, Germany, Canada, South Korea, Japan, France, Iceland, India and Australia. Learn more about how ExpressVPN here.

Leave it to Taylor Swift to eloquently proclaim, “Heartbreak is the national anthem, we sing it proudly, we are too busy dancing.” 

Those are the lyrics to the superstar’s 2014 track “New Romantics,” a cathartic shout-from-the-rooftops anthem that showcased the songwriter’s heart-on-her-sleeve approach, while touching on the indomitable power of music. As all Swifties know, she built her entire career of catharsis through music and a legion of fans have experienced that catharsis right back. 

Mental health and music have long gone hand in hand, because that’s the power vulnerable lyrics can have: they’re a balm, a soothing salve, a warm hug. No matter its heartbreak or anxiety, the right song provides a give and take between artist and listener. Swift of course isn’t alone: Billie Eilish bravely sings about mental health, as do luminaries like Selena Gomez and Kid Cudi. Recent breakouts like Lola Young do as well, as Young so expressively regales her feelings in songs like “Messy.”  In fact, these healing lyrics have been at the bedrock of the art form since the beginning: from relating to the feeling of isolation thanks to Elvis as he crooned “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” or having spirits lifted by bands like the Beatles and songs like “Here Comes the Sun.”

But as much as music can change our mood or make us feel heard and seen, there’s still a stigma. 

BetterHelp zeroed on the hangups that still persist in society in their recent State of Stigma report, which asked 2,000 Americans about mental health in the midst of AI, a changing world and ever-shifting perceptions. The surprising numbers the survey uncovered speak for themselves: 85 percent of both Millennials and Gen Z reported back a belief that health care is a basic necessity, while at the same time roughly half of both groups feel pressure to handle them on their own. 

According to BetterHelp’s President Fernando Madeira, “Mental health needs are rising, but so is the hesitation to get help.” 

As a result, he points to what he defines as a “real challenge: people believe in care, but too many still face stigma and friction when it comes to taking the first step.” Even more troubling is that a whopping 77 percent of men and 82 percent of women surveyed said they suffered from anxiety in the past two weeks. Meanwhile, 79 percent of men and 83 percent of women say they’ve felt depressed.

While artists may be providing cathartic releases through their art, more and more of today’s biggest stars are getting honest about similar issues. Doja Cat recently revealed she surfers from Borderline Personality Disorder, saying “I’ve learned from a very young age to pretend that I like stuff, to pretend that I’m happy, to pretend that I don’t like stuff that I do, to appear like everything is okay.” 

Meanwhile, Lewis Capaldi reflected in a recent interview about a concert appearance in Chicago where he said he couldn’t finish a song he was performing. “I was like, backstage, convulsing and having this crazy panic attack, mental episode,” he recalled. “It was really, really bad. It was the first time people at my shows had seen it.”

This raw honesty chips away at the aforementioned stigma, with 48 percent of Gen Z saying they feel a stigma discussing mental health while 42 percent reporting that they have a worry they’ll be judged for simply seeking care. As the survey found, “Awareness is no longer the barrier; access, friction, and follow-through—are.” 

In the debut episode of BetterHelp and Billboard’s LIKE MINDED series, Ravyn Lenae and Corinne Bailey Rae opened up about their respective struggles and strides in a candid conversation. “What you don’t expect is the loneliness of it,” Lenae said of her sudden success with songs like “Love Me Not.”  “I remember being on tour and I remember crying one day in my hotel room and being confused about why I’m crying because everything’s going so well.”

Mimicking the power of music beyond the lyrics and sounds, BetterHelp is helping break down the walls of that stigma and get music fans, and everybody else, the healing they deserve. 72 percent of users report seeing a reduction in their mental health symptoms, while 69 percent have experienced a meaningful improvement in anxiety and depression. And much like sharing a playlist you’re proud of, an impressive 82 percent of people surveyed said they’d recommend their BetterHelp therapist to someone else. 

Meanwhile, Madeira points out that “the question isn’t whether AI will play a role, but how responsibly it can be built. As a company committed to removing barriers to mental wellness, we have an obligation to ensure AI redefines how mental health care is accessed while upholding the clinical rigor, safety, and outcomes that matter.”

All of that progress makes way for what Swift sang about heartbreak: “We sing it proudly, we are too busy dancing.”