Will Ferrell’s son Magnus has social media buzz for new song, ‘Sleep Talking’

A member of the Ferrell family is becoming increasingly popular, although this time, the jokes have very little to do with it.

Magnus Ferrell, the 22-year-old singer and eldest son of Will Ferrell, is reaching a lot of new listeners (and arguably becoming a social media boyfriend) with “Asleep Talking,” his pop-pop song about not being able to stop thinking about someone, even in your sleep.

“I’M HAPPY!” he quoted TikTok on July 3, 2026, calling the number of young people showing love to the song “absolutely amazing.”

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Released on April 24 (but getting a new boost this summer), “Asleep Talking” features a piano and guitar production that doesn’t say anything as Magnus returns to the song’s main idea: someone has thought so much that he’s talking about it in his sleep. Its official video has received over 400,000 views on YouTube and has over 600,000 streams on Spotify.

The song reaches out to the biggest online creators of music reactions. The Morning Shift Show, which has more than 1 million followers on the platform, listened and reacted to “Asleep Talking” on July 23, introducing the song to its audience – one commenter came to Magnus’ page and wrote “sent here by the Morning Shift guys,” adding that the song was “on repeat”

The song received another endorsement on July 1, when Ferrell appeared on Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson. IMO a podcast. Will played “Asleep Talking” for the hosts, and Obama applauded the song.

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For those unfamiliar with the Ferrell family tree beyond Will, Magnus is the eldest of the actor’s three sons with his wife, Swedish creator Viveca Paulin. The couple, who married in 2000, share sons Mattias and Axel.

Magnus started playing the piano at a young age and later became interested in jazz, which gave him more freedom to develop and improve his musical style. He often collaborates with his longtime friend Gabe Yaron, who co-wrote the hit song with him.

By the time Magnus enrolled at the University of Southern California (USC), his father’s alma mater, he and Yaron were living together, posting covers and original songs online. Magnus later took a break from USC to focus on music full time and signed with Republic Records.

In a 2025 interview with Atwood Magazine, he described his approach as “groove therapy,” or a way of sharing his passion for music while allowing listeners to draw their own emotions from it.

For TikTok and X, listeners have been finding their own ways to interpret its dreamy, dreamy sound. One called it “dancing in the kitchen making dinner with wine music,” while another felt “Super 8 rom com vibes.”

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Like many celebrity children (or “nepo-babies”) who pursue their careers, Magnus admitted that his father’s fame inevitably affects how audiences first encounter his work.

“I’m not one to pretend it’s not something,” Magnus told the newspaper. “Absolutely, of course. I won’t hide it.”

“Asleep Talking” may have introduced Magnus to a wider audience, but it’s far from his first release. His back catalog includes tracks like “Drinks on Me,” “Life or Death,” and “Miss Me Vendetta,” as well as the EP. He hasn’t even started yet. He’s also no stranger to the stage, having performed at the 2025 Summer Bash in New York and the MTV Video Music Awards in September as a solo artist.

One of Magnus’ earlier songs made it onto a project his father was playing. He and Yaron wrote “Slow Down” while trying to get out of creative ruts, and sent it to Will during the production of the Prime Video comedy 2025. Kindly Invited. The song ended up in one of the movie’s party scenes. Later, during his band’s first live performance—2022’s Cancer for College—his father joined him on stage with a cowbell, rebuilding the instrument in the middle of his famous Saturday Night Live sketch.

Father and son produced another dangerous moment the following year when Will DJed a USC fraternity tailgate at Magnus’s invitation. With Magnus by his side, the actor played songs for the crowd including Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”.

Magnus later explained that he simply asked his father if he wanted to take over the music for a few minutes. Will agreed, and another video of the Ferrell family started making its way onto social media. When asked where he learned to DJ, Magnus joked, “I got my chops from my pops.”

“Asleep Talking” produces a different introduction. This time around, Will Ferrell might give a familiar name, but Magnus has given TikTok a song it won’t get out of its head.