Carly Rae Jepsen has revealed that her first baby is a boy — and apparently, even her baby-naming era has a Heated Rivalry subplot.
The singer spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about her new album Day and Night, which will be released on Sept. 18, and briefly opened up about becoming a mom earlier this year with her husband, music producer Cole M.G.N., whose real name is Cole Marsden Greif-Neill.
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She revealed for the first time that her baby is a boy and shared that his name is Ilya, a name connected to one of the biggest gay TV obsessions of late 2025. Is Carly Rae Jepsen starting a baby-naming trend? Given how many people spent last year developing extremely strong feelings about Ilya, we probably shouldn’t underestimate the possibility.
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“It was an incredible show,” said Jepsen, who had been asked to write a song for the first season but was unfortunately out of budget for the series. “Ilya is the name of my son. Maybe, not maybe because of that show.”
That “maybe, not maybe” is doing quite a lot of work.
Ilya Has Entered the Carly Rae Jepsen Cinematic Universe
For anyone who somehow missed the Heated Rivalry phenomenon, Ilya is the name of the character played by Connor Storrie in the series.
So yes, the same singer who gave us Call Me Maybe now has a son named Ilya. The pop-culture connections are practically writing themselves.
Her comments also make the connection deliciously ambiguous. She doesn’t quite say that Heated Rivalry inspired the name, but she certainly knows the name belongs to a character from the show — and she had already been connected to the series in another way.
She Almost Had a Heated Rivalry Song, Too
Before Heated Rivalry became appointment viewing for audiences invested in complicated feelings, complicated athletes and extremely complicated hotel-room situations, Jepsen had been asked to write a song for the show’s first season.
Unfortunately, the series was out of budget for the song, so that collaboration didn’t happen.
Still, Jepsen clearly enjoyed the finished product, calling it “an incredible show.” And now the singer has revealed that her son is named Ilya.
Coincidence? Inspiration? A little bit of both? She is leaving that door open.
The Timing Makes It Even More Interesting
Heated Rivalry premiered in late 2025, while Jepsen welcomed her first child in March. That makes the timing particularly interesting for fans who know exactly which Ilya we’re talking about.
Now, months later, she’s finally sharing another major detail: it’s a boy, and his name is Ilya. And if you’re a Heated Rivalry fan, hearing that name probably comes with a very specific mental image.
From “Call Me Maybe” to Ilya, Apparently
She has spent years supplying pop music with songs that get permanently lodged in people’s heads. Now she may have accidentally supplied a certain corner of television fandom with a baby name to obsess over, too.
Whether Heated Rivalry directly inspired Ilya remains delightfully unclear. Jepsen’s “Maybe, not maybe because of that show” answer suggests the connection isn’t quite as straightforward as fans might want it to be.
Still, the timing, the name and her previous connection to the series make for one very fun coincidence.
And somewhere, presumably, a future class of Ilyas is being born while their parents insist they chose the name for completely unrelated reasons.