Michelle Chongmi Zauner (born March 29, 1989) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and author, known as the lead vocalist of the indie pop band Japanese Breakfast.

In 2011, after graduating from Bryn Mawr College, Zauner and three other musicians formed Little Big League, a Philadelphia-based emo band that released two albums, These Are Good People (2013) and Tropical Jinx (2014).

Zauner, who in 2013 began to release music under the name Japanese Breakfast, left Little Big League in 2014 when she returned to Eugene to care for her ailing mother.

"[9] She began playing at local open mic nights and at performance venues around Eugene under the name Little Girl, Big Spoon,[10] much to the chagrin of her mother, who hoped that her daughter would not pursue a career in music.

[9] Her musical activities strained her relationship with her mother, which caused Zauner to become depressed during senior year at South Eugene High School.

[13] Zauner attended Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where she created an independent major in creative production and became fond of authors such as Philip Roth, Richard Ford, and John Updike.

[22] In 2011, Zauner started the Philadelphia emo band Little Big League with Ian Dykstra, Kevin O'Halloran, and Deven Craige.

The album was released on the Tiny Engines label as These Are Good People on August 6, 2013, and the band launched a tour.

"[27] In June 2013, Zauner and musician Rachel Gagliardi of the duo Slutever recorded and posted one song a day on the Tumblr blog rachelandmichelledojune.

[32] Also in July 2014, Little Big League and rock band Ovlov co-released an EP, Split, on the Tiny Engines label.

[33] Later that year, they signed with Run for Cover, which released the band's second and final album, Tropical Jinx, in October.

[35] Zauner left the band to return to Eugene to care for her mother, who had been diagnosed with stage IV squamous cell carcinoma.

They played several shows at the Brooklyn venues Silent Barn, David Blaine's The Steakhouse, and Market Hotel, where they opened for DIIV in March 2016.

Zauner had decided to quit music and not tour after releasing the album, but changed her mind after it received critical praise[42] and more attention than she expected.

[44] On June 23, 2016, Dead Oceans announced that it had signed Japanese Breakfast, which made its live international debut that August in the United Kingdom.

[45] On July 13, 2016, Zauner won the 11th edition of the Glamour magazine essay contest with "Real Life: Love, Loss, and Kimchi",[46] which discussed her mother's cancer diagnosis and death and the bond they shared over Korean food.

Galloway had earlier contributed a guitar part for a song, "Slide Tackle", that eventually appeared on Japanese Breakfast's studio album Jubilee (2021).

[56][57] On April 1, 2021, Harper's Bazaar published Zauner's essay, "#Forgiveness," which discussed her estrangement from her father after her mother's death.

[48] In 2023, Zauner said she planned to move to Seoul in December to work on a new album and her second book, which is to document her experience in learning Korean for a year.

[75] The album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), was recorded at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles, produced by Blake Mills, and is slated for release by Dead Oceans on March 21, 2025.

[76] In January 2025, Zauner announced that the Crying in H Mart film was "on pause", saying: "There were issues with the Hollywood strikes, and the director stepped away from the project.

[88] Zauner married her bandmate Peter Bradley in 2014, just two weeks before her mother's death from squamous cell carcinoma of the bile duct.

After her mother died, Zauner began making frequent trips to H Mart, a supermarket that specializes in Korean food, and began learning how to cook the Korean food her mother made during her childhood, a process she chronicled in her essay Crying in H Mart and her book of the same name.

She spoke out on Twitter after the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, expressing her anger and calling it important to acknowledge anti-Asian racism in the United States.

[95] In 2022, Zauner and Chicago-based Goose Island Brewery released a limited-edition lager at the Pitchfork Music Festival to raise money for the "Heart of Dinner" charity, which helps elderly Asian-Americans struggling with food insecurity.