Bridgit Mendler denied the surprise EP: “Once Again...” is not my official return to music
Bridgit Mendler, the former Disney actress and pop singer, has denied that the suddenly released EP “Once Again...” is her official return to music. The release appeared in early June on her profiles on streaming services, including Spotify and Apple Music, which immediately prompted speculation among fans that the songwriter behind “Ready or Not” and “Hurricane” was returning to the music scene after a multi-year recording break. Mendler, however, said in a post on X that the release was not hers and that the public will not have to guess when she truly decides to return to music.
According to information published by Hollywood Life, the EP “Once Again...” was marked as a new release on Bridgit Mendler’s profiles and contained six songs: “Flowers”, “Cold”, “Mercy”, “Long Run”, “Loyalties” and “Oxygen”. Since this is an artist whose music catalogue has not significantly expanded with new solo releases for years, the mere appearance of the EP was enough to generate major interest on social media. Some fans interpreted the release as the end of her musical pause, but Mendler quickly stopped such interpretations.
The release sparked speculation, Mendler quickly stopped it
Mendler, according to a post reported by American media, wrote that she was sorry to disappoint the audience, but that the release on Spotify “was not her”. She added that when it truly is her new music, the audience will definitely know. Such wording left open the possibility of a future musical return, but at the same time clearly made it known that “Once Again...” is not an authorized project that could be considered a continuation of her discography.
According to a statement by a Spotify spokesperson reported by Hollywood Life, the disputed release was removed from the artist’s profile. The same statement said that protecting artists’ identities is one of the platform’s priorities and that Spotify continues to invest in systems for detecting and preventing incorrectly attributed or unauthorized releases. This confirmed that the matter is not merely an inconvenience for the audience, but also a question of control over an artist’s identity in the digital music environment.
At present, it has not been officially confirmed who was the source of the release, how the EP ended up on Bridgit Mendler’s profiles, or whether it was a technical error, incorrect attribution or some other form of unauthorized distribution. The available information indicates only that Mendler was not behind the release and that Spotify, according to its own statement given to the media, removed the release from her profile. In such cases, music platforms most often have to determine whether the problem arose in the metadata, at the distributor, or in the process of linking the release to the artist’s profile.
Why fans believed in the return
The audience reaction was not surprising because Bridgit Mendler had a recognizable transition in the early 2010s from the Disney television environment into pop music. Apple Music states in the artist’s profile that her 2012 debut album “Hello My Name Is...” reached the top 40 on the Billboard 200 chart, while her best-known songs still include “Ready or Not”, “Hurricane”, “Determinate” and songs from the film “Lemonade Mouth”. The same profile states that she returned to music in 2017 with the singles “Temperamental Love”, “Can’t Bring This Down” and “Diving”, after which no larger solo album followed.
For the audience that followed her career, the sudden EP could have seemed credible precisely because Mendler had already made musical turns in the past. After the pop sound associated with her Disney Channel period, the 2016 EP “Nemesis” marked a more mature songwriting direction with influences from alternative R&B and electronic production. For that reason, an unannounced release with new songs could also have been interpreted as another unexpected return, especially at a time when artists often release music suddenly without a long promotional campaign.
But the difference between a surprise release and an unauthorized release in digital distribution can be difficult for the public to see. Streaming services often display new releases directly on official artist profiles, so the very presence of an album or EP on a profile creates an impression of authenticity. In this case, Mendler’s reaction was the key confirmation that the release should not be treated as her official music. Her message also served as a reminder that even a profile on a major platform is not always sufficient proof that a release came from the artist or their team.
The broader problem of digital catalogues
The case of “Once Again...” fits into a broader problem the music industry has been facing in recent years: songs can appear incorrectly on the profiles of well-known artists due to metadata, similar names, automated distribution or deliberate exploitation of the system. In March 2026, Spotify introduced the optional Artist Profile Protection feature, currently in limited beta, through which artists and their teams can review releases before they appear on a profile. According to a Spotify for Artists post, the goal is for only approved releases to enter an artist’s catalogue, listening statistics and recommendations to listeners.
Spotify states in its official documentation that profile protection allows releases to be approved or rejected before they appear on a profile, and that a release requiring approval that receives no response should not be shown as that artist’s release. The documentation also states that the feature is still in beta and available to a limited group of artists. This means the system is not yet a universal solution for all cases of incorrect attribution, but it shows that platforms recognize the problem as a serious challenge for songwriters, record labels and audiences.
The importance of such tools is growing further with the development of generative artificial intelligence and the increasingly simple distribution of music. Still, in the case of Bridgit Mendler, there is currently no confirmed information that the EP “Once Again...” is connected to artificial intelligence. It is most accurate to speak of an unauthorized or incorrectly attributed release, because Mendler did not confirm authorship, and the platform, according to the media report, removed the release from her profile. Any additional interpretation of the cause remains unconfirmed until it is announced by the artist herself, her team, the distributor or the platform.
A musical pause and a new professional focus
In recent years, Mendler has rarely appeared in the context of new music releases, but she has not disappeared from public life. Her career after the Disney period developed in educational, technological and entrepreneurial directions. Northwood Space, the company she co-founded and leads as chief executive officer, is described as a provider of satellite communications infrastructure, that is, a company developing a ground network for the transfer of data between satellites and Earth.
According to Northwood’s official blog, the company announced in January 2026 that it had raised 100 million dollars in a Series B funding round, and it also cited a contract worth 49.8 million dollars with the United States Space Force to support the Satellite Control Network. In its official materials, Northwood emphasizes that it wants to shorten the time required to establish ground infrastructure for space missions, using an approach it compares to cloud computing infrastructure. That context explains why Mendler today is often mentioned publicly more as a technology entrepreneur than as a pop artist.
That is exactly why the sudden appearance of an alleged new EP attracted additional attention. She is a person whose public path is unusual: from roles in series and films for young audiences, through a pop career, to academic and technological work in the field of space infrastructure. When a new release under her name appeared on streaming services, part of the audience interpreted it as a return to one of the earlier phases of her career. The denial, however, showed that such a conclusion cannot be drawn solely from an automatically displayed catalogue on a platform.
What remains unknown
After Mendler’s denial, the most important question is not whether the public will listen to “Once Again...” as her new project, but how such a release could have been connected to her profile in the first place. In digital music distribution, metadata are crucial: artist name, identifiers, distributor information, copyrights, main or featured artist labels and links to existing profiles. If just one part of that chain is set up incorrectly or exploited, a song can appear where it does not belong.
The available information does not show whether the problem occurred at the distributor level, the platform level or with some third participant in the distribution chain. It is also unclear whether the songs were removed from all services on which they appeared or only from Bridgit Mendler’s profile on Spotify, because the publicly available statement from Spotify referred to removal from her profile on that platform. Apple Music, in the publicly available artist profile, according to a check of the current page, still highlighted earlier releases and best-known songs, rather than an official new EP titled “Once Again...”.
For artists, incidents like this can have consequences that go beyond short-term confusion among fans. An unauthorized or incorrectly attributed release can affect the perception of artistic direction, listening statistics, algorithmic recommendations and the audience’s trust. For listeners, meanwhile, such situations raise the question of how to distinguish an official release from content that merely appeared on an official profile. Mendler therefore provided the most important information directly in this case: “Once Again...” is not her return to music, and when the real return happens, the message will not be unclear.
Sources:
- Hollywood Life – report on the appearance of the EP “Once Again...”, Mendler’s denial and Spotify’s statement about removing the release (link)
- Bridgit Mendler / X – post in which she comments on a possible future musical return (link)
- Spotify for Artists – official post about the Artist Profile Protection feature and control of releases on artist profiles (link)
- Spotify Support – official documentation on artist profile protection and the release approval procedure (link)
- Apple Music – public Bridgit Mendler profile with an overview of songs, albums and earlier releases (link)
- Northwood Space – official blog about the Series B funding round and the contract with the U.S. Space Force (link)
- Northwood Space – official description of the company’s mission and business focus (link)