Kim knew 'Unholy' would be a smash the moment she heard it. The explosion on TikTok as the pair teased it in the run-up to its release further solidified that confidence. "It's felt special since Sam sent it to me," Kim says. "I'm really honoured and touched that Sam wanted me on it. We had so much fun writing it. It's been the dreamiest collab. I feel like I have a new friend for life."

That genuine connection is one of the reasons it's reacted so well on TikTok (being an absolute banger hasn't hurt either). In a world of awkward pairings for clout, Sam and Kim seem like they genuinely had the best time together. "With any collaboration, I want there to be that energy," explains Kim. "It's what happened when I worked with Charli XCX ('Unlock it') and SOPHIE ('1,2,3 Dayz Up') or any of my other collabs I'm proud of. It's just easier when people have a passion for the song and get along. It's why I say no to a lot of collaborations."

During the creation of 'Unholy', Sam encouraged her to bring "that authentic Kim Petras experience," she says in a British accent. "There were six dudes working on the song in the studio, then me and Sam being absolute queens. That could have been a scary atmosphere, but they really had my back."

That confidence is present in 'Slut Pop', the flamboyant seven-track EP Kim released earlier this year, and 'If Jesus Was A Rockstar', her upcoming guitar-driven single.

"It's a fun song, but it's also really lyrically intense," says Kim. She describes it as a choose-your-own-adventure track in terms of what it could mean to people, but for her, it was written after she struggled with her spirituality over the pandemic. "As a kid, all my friends would go to things like communion, but I always felt excluded. Maybe if religion was cooler and more accepting of LGBTQ+ people, maybe I would have gone to church and found a place for myself in it, but I didn't and probably never will. Today, I just believe in my own things."

The track was a dream come true moment for Kim, with Max Martin producing the song as well as providing backing vocals. "I didn't even know he was going to be there," says Kim. "I went there to work with Savan Kotecha and Ilya, and he was just sat on the couch, saying hi. I've studied the guy for so many years, so I was starstruck and nervous, but I played it pretty cool," she laughs. "We all got together, talked about the song, then threw spaghetti at the wall to see what stuck. It was so much fun."

It marks the start of a new era for Kim. "No one's heard anything like this from me before. Gay club music was always my shit before, but now everyone is doing that, so where's the excitement? If I did it again, it would just be boring." Instead, Kim decided to "sing about something deeply meaningful, something that I struggle with and something that is just honest."

Past projects like 'Clarity' and her 'Turn Off The Lights' series of Halloween EPs have been driven by escapism. "I was so into the idea that I hate my life, that I needed to make up stories," explains Kim. "This is the first time I'm talking about something real. I don't know if there's a character this time around. I think it might just be me."

It follows hot on the heels of 'Slut Pop', which saw Kim reclaiming sexist slurs and tackling the shame she felt as a trans person via gleeful club music.

"I don't know why I did so much thinking about my childhood during the pandemic," she starts before explaining one of her friend's mum was a prostitute. "They were the nicest people, but everyone was so mean to them. There was also the stuff that happened with OnlyFans (where the platform restricted the type of content people could upload and threatened to ban sexually explicit content altogether), where a lot of my friends and people in the trans community were freaking out about losing their income. It's so weird that people are so against sex work when it's clearly something humans need based on the huge demand for it. Why make people ashamed about it? 'Slut Pop' was my way of celebrating sex and sex workers. I know people have a lot of opinions about that record, but I'm really proud of it."

Between 'Jesus' and 'Slut Pop', Kim is becoming more comfortable talking about herself rather than constructing elaborate characters. Back in 2018, she was accused of being an "apolitical pop star", with her actions not aligning with her identity as an out trans musician.

"I think if your childhood is very traumatic and intense, and there's not much happiness in it, you just want to find fun in life and not think about it," says Kim. According to her parents, she knew she was trans since the age of 2 and spent her teen years appearing on talk shows and petitioning the German government to change the law to allow her to undergo sex reassignment surgery at the age of 16 instead of 18. She was successful, and a documentary followed, with the intention of educating and supporting other kids struggling with their identities. It also put Kim in the international spotlight, though. "All I was to people was transgender," says Kim. "But I saw music as this beautiful thing where that didn't matter."

She'd wanted to be a pop star since she was a child and worked hard on her craft, "but the record label meetings I had in the beginning were crazy. People would ask me the most ridiculous shit about being transgender, and everything would come down to how they would market that. People really didn't believe in me as an artist," dismissing her music as "too gay".

For ages, Kim saw her teenage years as a "painful and dark" chapter and tried to avoid it as much as possible. "'Slut Pop' is me turning that around, making it fun to talk about sexuality, and especially transsexuality. It's not a thing I need to run away from now."

She explains how a lot has changed over the past five years and for her. "SOPHIE was always such a ray of hope. I learnt a lot from her and feel the need to continue what SOPHIE was doing, which is to keep normalising being transgender. I just want to make music that touches people. I do it for all the people like me, who don't really fit in, who feel like they're aliens in a world that hates them."

On this new album, Kim is "really trying to talk about genuine feelings. There are moments that are very uptempo and very fun, but there's no elaborate character. It's basically my diary. Every song is its own little world, with its own story, and there's no overall concept."

This isn't Kim's first attempt at a major label debut, though. Back in 2021, she released two singles ('Coconuts' and 'Future Starts Now') from a European pop-inspired record called 'Problématique'. Others songs like 'Hit It From The Back' and 'Revelations' were performed live. Taking influence from Britney Spears' 'Blackout', Lana Del Rey's 'Born To Die' and Marina's 'Electra Heart', the concept record would see Kim playing the "most fun" version of herself. However, earlier this year, that entire record was leaked alongside other songs from the vault.

Thankfully, Kim was already working on the record that's due to come out, with 'Problématique' intended to act as the quick follow-up. "The leaks didn't turn my world upside down. It just made it shitty for a few days," she explains.

Her upcoming album has "changed so much" over the past couple of years. "I was really pushed by the label to beat the shit out of every song. The end result is something I really believe in. I'm doing the absolute most I can on this album."