Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast is ‘Jpreggie!’
The songwriter, bandleader and "Crying In H Mart" author made the announcement with an Instagram post after performing at a festival in New York. She plays the Highmark Mann in July.
Jbrekkie is Jpreggie.
That’s how Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast announced her pregnancy on Instagram on Monday — with an added exclamation point — after performing with a quite visible baby bump at the Governors Ball on Randalls Island in New York over the weekend.
The Crying In H Mart author, for whom the coat check at Philly venue Union Transfer is named (she used to work there), has two more festival dates scheduled this month: at Bonnaroo in Tennessee and the Stern Grove Festival in San Francisco.
Then Zauner kicks off a tour opening for Death Cab for Cutie at the Highmark Mann in Philadelphia on July 17. She’s playing in support of her 2025 album Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women).
Zauner, who grew up in Eugene, Oregon, founded Japanese Breakfast in 2013 while living in Philadelphia and also leading the band Little Big League.
Melancholy is the follow-up to her 2021 album Jubilee, which earned her two Grammy nominations.
The H Mart grocery store cited in the title of her book — a book about grieving her mother Chongmi and exploring her Korean identity through food — is in Elkins Park.
» READ MORE: Michelle Zauner of Philly’s Japanese Breakfast has a new memoir born of grief and a new album full of joy
The songwriter and author, who is a Bryn Mawr College graduate, is married to guitarist and keyboard player Peter Bradley. They were married in 2014.
Last year, Zauner guested on the song “NamgungFefere” by the South Korean band Silica Gel and also recorded her own song “My Baby (Gto Nothing At All)” for the soundtrack of the Dakota Johnson-starring movie Materialists.
She’s also written a screenplay for a film version of Crying In H Mart. In 2022, it was announced that actor Will Sharpe — currently starring as Mozart in the Amadeus TV series — would direct from Zauner’s script. But the movie is on hold, and Sharpe is no longer attached to the project.
Zauner is not the only acclaimed woman of indie rock who rose to prominence in Philadelphia in the 2010s to recently announce a pregnancy.
Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee, who performed at the Met Philly in April with MJ Lenderman, is also expecting a child with her partner, Kansas City songwriter Kevin Morby. His Little Wide open tour plays Union Transfer on Tuesday.
