"My mom would’ve lost her mind if she knew I was sleeping on benches,” Benny Blanco laughs, reflecting on a time when his dreams were big—but his budget was nonexistent.
Before producing chart-toppers for Britney Spears, Maroon 5, and Selena Gomez, Blanco’s nights in New York weren’t filled with fame and luxury. Instead, they often ended on train station benches, in public parks, or even inside the McDonald’s on Times Square.
Now 37, the hit-making producer opened up in a recent InStyle interview about the scrappy beginnings of his career. Back then, there were no tour buses or hotel rooms—just a group of determined friends, a beat-up car, and one hilariously bulky iMac G5 that they hauled from gig to gig across Brooklyn.
One Computer, a Trunk Full of Dreams
With no laptop in sight, Blanco and his crew would drive all the way from Virginia to Brooklyn just to play house parties and small events. Dragging that massive desktop computer from venue to venue became routine. Glamorous? Hardly. But for Benny, it was the price of chasing something bigger.
His parents had no clue what he was up to. And even as he started breaking into music production, skepticism was still a regular guest at the dinner table.
“When I told my mom I was going into the studio with Britney Spears, she literally said, ‘Oh come on, no you're not.’ And I was like, ‘I swear I am!’”
The Plan B That Never Happened
Even as hits began to roll in, his mother never stopped asking the dreaded question:
“So… what’s your plan B?”
Well, turns out plan A worked just fine.
Fast-forward to today, and Blanco’s résumé reads like a pop encyclopedia: “TiK ToK” by Kesha, “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry, “Diamonds” by Rihanna, and “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz are just a few of the songs he’s helped turn into global anthems.
In 2025, he took things a step further—releasing a joint album with fiancée Selena Gomez titled “I Said I Love You First.” The project is as personal as it gets: a musical timeline of their relationship, capturing everything from the first spark to future dreams.
Selena Found Her Way Through Him
Selena Gomez told Rolling Stone that before the album, she felt musically stuck.
“I was frustrated and confused about where I wanted to go creatively… but Benny believed in me,” she shared.
“And somehow, this whole thing just flowed—it was like nothing I’d experienced before.”
