In 2020, Rosaileen Scher was a 20-year-old songwriting student at the Berklee College of Music. She gave herself a challenge to post a new song every day on TikTok.
On the fifth day, she posted “Never the 1,” a moody beauty of a breakup song and quickly went viral.
“Two hours [after I put it up], I get back from my walk, get into my apartment, and it has a million views,” she told The Post. “I couldn’t believe what was happening. I called my manager brother [Matteo], and he said, ‘Yeah, it’s real.’ And by the time I woke up the next morning, it was at 8 million, and it kept going to16, 17 million.”
The song currently has over 18 million views, and Scher — who is now 23 and goes by just Rosie — is both a TikTok sensation and a writer who has penned music for one of the greatest voices on earth, Celine Dion.
Rosie and tunesmith Dan Wilson — lead singer of the “Closing Time” band Semisonic — became “songwriting pals” during the pandemic and were asked to write a song to go over the credits of the romantic comedy “Love Again,” which starred Priyanka Chopra and Sam Heughan.
They nailed the job writing “Love Again,” a hopelessly romantic ballad that was released in April and was Dion’s first single since being diagnosed with stiff-person syndrome — a neurological disease that has affected her ability to sing — in 2022.
“Growing up and wanting to sing, she was just one of the biggest influences for me because her voice is one in a million,” said Rosie, who lives in Brooklyn. “I’m just so grateful that she felt called to take the song and to make it her own.”
Still, Rosie — whose second EP, “5 Songs for Healing,” drops Friday — is hesitant to take credit for helping the “My Heart Will Go On” singer to find her voice again with her first new music since 2019.
“If I did in any way, I’m so honored,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine if I couldn’t sing anymore or if I was having a hard time singing.”
Growing up in Rockland County, New York, Rosie first picked up the violin when she was 8, but she really began discovering her own voice after she took up guitar at 12.
“That was the first time I learned that you could sing and play guitar at the same time,” she said. “And songwriting became just a huge hobby for me and a huge outlet for me.”
Indeed, putting her feelings to music was a form of therapy for Rosie as an adolescent.
“I found that when I was writing songs, I could really explain my emotions, and I could really grapple with what was going on in my life because from a young age, I struggled with my mental health,” she said. “I realized that I suffered with an anxiety disorder and depression, and writing always helped me.”
Her viral moment with a deal with “Never the 1,” scored Rosie a deal with Arista Records, and she released her debut EP, “20mg of Happiness,” in 2021.
Rosie — who counts Coldplay, Taylor Swift and Mozart among her inspirations — has made a point of keeping it natural as her star has risen.
She doesn’t wear any makeup, nor does she use any filters or make any edits on her photos.
“Growing up as a social-media consumer — I was on Instagram, I was on Facebook, I was on Twitter — I saw just a feed full of unrealistic pictures, unrealistic beauty standards,” she said.
“It was so damaging to my mental health, to my relationship with my body. It really, really damaged my self-esteem. And so when I was figuring out who I wanted to be as an artist, I wanted to be the role model that I wish I had when I was younger. I wish I had someone posting real pictures with no makeup.”
In fact, Rosie rocked a makeup-free mug on the red carpet of the “Love Again” premiere in May.
But she has yet to come face-to-face with Dion, who wasn’t at the big event because of health reasons.
“But I think the connection is definitely spiritual,” she said. “One day we’ll meet.”
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