Getty Singer Daniel Seavey in 2015 and 2022.
After a rough summer, “American Idol” alum Daniel Seavey is moving forward by returning to where he came from. Following a legal battle with his band’s management and an obsessed fan breaking into his home, Seavey decided to head back to his first home over Labor Day weekend. And soon after the singer announced a free impromptu concert at the spot where he used to play music as a kid in Portland, Oregon, fans showed up in droves.
Here’s the latest on the popular Why Don’t We singer…
Seavey’s Getting Over a Rocky Summer
YouTubeDaniel Seavey recording cover of “Hallelujah” in 2022.
Seavey was just 15 when he competed on Season 14 of “Idol,” reaching the Top 9 in 2015. The following year, he and four fellow musicians launched the boy band Why Don’t We, which has developed a rabid following and scored its first No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Charts in January 2021.
The band has fans all over the world who call themselves “limelights.” However, the group’s been embroiled in legal disputes with their management, announcing on July 6, 2022 that they were being forced to cancel their tour due to ongoing litigation.
Weeks later, Seavey learned an “obsessed fan” had broken into his Los Angeles home on July 28. According to court documents obtained by Heavy, the singer was granted a temporary restraining order after a young woman was spotted on Seavey’s security cameras crawling through an open window, sleeping in the singer’s bed, wearing his clothes, and opening his kitchen cabinets. TMZ obtained some of the footage shortly after the break-in.
Seavey’s older brother Tyler, who was recently promoted to Seavey’s co-manager, called the police and headed to the home. Because the fan saw his brother as she was being arrested, Seavey requested that his brother also be included in the restraining order.
“The person broke into my house while I was out of town,” Seavey wrote in his restraining order request. “She stayed the night in my bed, put on my clothes, playing my musical instruments. She told LAPD we should be together when she was arrested and questioned.”
According to TMZ on September 3, the Los Angeles City Attorney has now charged 23-year-old Amira Eissa with two counts of trespassing.
Seavey’s Rise to Fame Includes Close Interaction With Fans
Seavey has grown used to overzealous fans, though the scary break-in at his home was a first. Eissa was kept on a 72-hour psych hold after police arrested her at Seavey’s home, but in court documents he wrote, “I am in fear of what she might do upon release.”
He told the Chicago Tribune in 2019 that he finds his fans act differently around the world; those in Japan are “respectful,” he said, while fans “go crazy” in the Philippines. But in Los Angeles, Seavey said fans act like they know him personally.
“Fans there try to act like you’re homies more than they’re fans,” he told the newspaper. “It gets kind of awkward. You’ll take 30 pictures with them at an airport and they’ll (post), ‘Hanging out again.’ And you’ll be like, ‘What? No.’”
That may be why he chose to go visit his hometown fans in Portland, Oregon, at the end of his tumultuous summer. On Twitter, he gave fans a heads-up just an hour before showing up outside the Filson store with his guitar and microphone on September 1.
PORTLAND IM PERFORMING A FEW SONGS AT FIRST THURSDAY TONIGHT AT THE SAME SPOT I USED TO PLAY AS A KID. 7PM IN FRONT OF FILSON <3
Fans swarmed the location, thrilled for the chance to hear Seavey play solo and try to snap a selfie with him. After his performance, fans rushed the singer, with many posted videos and photos on social media of their interactions. One shared multiple videos of Seavey singing on YouTube, including the single he released in July, a haunting original tune called “Bleed On Me.”
In a 2015 article in The Oregonian, Seavey described how he fell in love with performing at age 7, when his dad used to take YouTube videos of him playing music and singing at their home in Vancouver, and how he eventually began taking his young son to downtown Portland to play on the street during art fairs.
But Seavey got his first taste of true fame — and dealing with fans — the morning after his first appearance on “American Idol” in January 2015.
“There were all these people saying they loved me,” Seavey told the newspaper at the time. “People I had never met before. People from China, saying they saw my YouTube videos. It was a different morning.”