Angela Defoe
Los Angeles' Angela Defoe has written a viral pop single, directed an anniversary music video for one of the biggest alternative rock songs of the 2000s, and maintained her sanity while being married to a constantly traveling rock star. The director and musician's next goal is winning a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet.
PokerNews caught up with Defoe, a lifelong poker player, in one of several WSOP events that she is playing this summer to talk about her music and directing careers, poker goals and being married to Ronnie Winter-Defoe, the singer and founding member of The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.
"I Just Wanted to Challenge Myself"
Defoe met her husband at a recording studio while working as a vocal producer and editor. It was Winter-Defoe who wrote The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus' 2006 hit "Face Down," which went five times Platinum in the US and made Variety's list of the 25 best emo songs of all time.
The upbeat music of "Face Down" is juxtaposed with sobering lyrics about domestic abuse and accompanied by a music video portraying the daily life struggles of an abuse victim. In 2022, Defoe wrote and directed an anniversary music video for a "symphonic edition" of the deepest song in pop punk history.
"My idea was to bring the original girl back and see how things can change 13 years later," Defoe told PokerNews. "Because people who are victims in the moment are surrounded by the force. They can't see their way out. But when they can get themselves out of that situation, things can change for the better."
Defoe had a hit single of her own in 2020 with "Black Metal Romance," a dreamy pop ballad described by one fan as "a perfect song for a James Bond movie," despite its title paying tribute to an extreme and abrasive heavy metal subgenre. An eerie but beautiful music video for the track starring Defoe and Defoe-Winter has garnered 1.6 million views on YouTube.
"I just wanted to challenge myself on making a black metal song," Defoe said. "I had different genres I wanted to attack, but it ended up having a life of its own and I couldn't fit a square into this round hole. And once you kind of create a basis of a song, it kind of tells you what it needs ... and you have to listen to it. And so it ended up becoming kind of this really beautiful, romantic, atmospheric song. And so I just kind of followed what it was telling me to ... And I feel like poker is similar in that way."
Poker Roots
Defoe, who grew up in California, has been around poker for as long as she can remember.
"Since I was a baby, all of our family reunions was poker and Filipino food. And I would take stacks of chips and make little houses and little roads for my cards," Defoe said, adding that her mom and aunts would occasionally sneak her money from the game.
Defoe stepped away from poker for nearly a decade as she focused on raising her son. In February, she recorded her first Hendon Mob cash by making a Los Angeles Poker Classic (LAPC) final table, which she followed up with winning a $250 Commerce tournament for $14,885 via three-way chop.
Congratulations to Angela Defoe (@WhatIsDefoe) of Claremont, CA who was the winner via ten-way chop in our DeepStack Extravaganza Event #62 $200 NLH Bounty $10,000 guarantee on 5.04.25
— Venetian Poker Room (@VenetianPoker) May 5, 2025
Angela takes home the DeepStack Extravaganza bronze coin and $805 + bounties pic.twitter.com/km2h2TCY8u
Three months later, Defoe chopped a $150 Venetian DeepStack Extravaganza II event in Las Vegas with fire in her belly after busting 38th in the $1,100 Main Event by flopping a set of queens that was crushed by a rivered straight.
And now, Defoe is raising the stakes once more as she takes on poker's best at the WSOP.
Playing with Kristen Foxen
PokerNews caught up with Defoe on June 1 as she played in Day 1 of Event #11: $10,000 Mystery Bounty, the biggest buy-in of her poker career. The field included top pros like Eric Baldwin, Erik Seidel (a music afficionadio himself), Nacho Barbero and Kristen Foxen, one of Defoe's poker heroes who she briefly battled against before getting moved to a new table.
Kristen Foxen
"I was really excited when I got her to fold a few hands," Defoe said. "She's an amazing person. She's very grounded and stable. And I think if she's going to be the best female poker player in the world, she's a perfect candidate because I think she represents women in a way that women need to be represented."
Though Defoe was eliminated on Day 1 of the Mystery Bounty, she cashed three later events, including a 99th place finish in Event #17: $2,000 NLH for $4,708.
Defoe had her rock star husband with her in Las Vegas on her bracelet chase, decked out in a WSOP letterman jacket and "Poker is War" hat. She said Winter-Defoe, who will return to Vegas later this year to play the When We Were Young festival, is a competent poker player himself.
"He does (play poker) and he's pretty good at it. But he just doesn't have the patience."
Ronnie Winter of The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus supporting his wife Angela Defoe at the WSOP
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