This story contains profanity.
“I don’t want whatever the fuck you think you’re supposed to be entitled to when you see a celebrity,” said Chappell Roan in an August 19th TikTok video. “I don’t give a fuck if you think it’s selfish of me to say no for a photo, or for your time, or for a hug. That’s not normal. That’s weird… You’re a random bitch.”
The series of two TikToks posted by Roan that day garnered over 35 million combined views as the internet watched the artist crumble just months into her time in the limelight. Hoards of hate comments and critiques flooded in, with onlookers accusing Roan of ungratefulness. Twitter users gained tens of thousands of likes with messages such as “She’s the most chronically online person I’ve ever seen”, “She acting like she got battery acid splashed on her in public because a teenage girl asked to take a selfie” (user @MADI0R), and “If you can’t be grateful for the support fans want to give you, choose a different career” (user @grandenewshub). Fans were divided, some supportive, some hurt by Roan’s words.
At just 18, Roan landed a job opening with indie artist Vance Joy on the North American leg of his 2017 tour. While still a teenager, she decided to move out of her parents’ home in Missouri and across the country to Los Angeles. Roan’s fanbase was small but dedicated; she ran in the same circles as pop singer Troye Sivan and YouTuber Connor Franta, She continued to perform as an opening act for various artists, including FLETCHER in 2022, while she was releasing singles. However, she struggled to break into mainstream media. In 2023, Roan released her first studio album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.
Olivia Rodrigo welcomed Roan as an opening act for her Guts tour in early 2023. After nearly 10 years as a recording artist, Roan’s spot on the tour pushed her into the limelight, with her Spotify streams rising by over 32% in one week. Seemingly overnight, Chappell Roan went from a small indie artist to a pop sensation. On April 5th, 2024, she released Good Luck, Babe!, the hit single that would push to the top of the charts, gaining over 700 million streams.
At the start of 2024, Roan’s Instagram account had just over 250,000 followers. As of September 2024, the account is just shy of 5 million followers. Few artists have ever had a social climb this steep so fast. With Roan’s fame came a fanbase, mainly composed of young adult women. Most of her audience have only just discovered Roan’s music, but a small fraction have been fans for quite some time. Many run fan accounts dedicated to Roan.
Kayleigh Rose Amstutz (a.k.a Chappell Roan) is a strikingly private figure. She strives to keep her personal life and identity separate from her identity as Chappell Roan, who she views as an alter-ego. In an interview with Tom Power, Roan said, “Chappell Roan is my drag project… that’s also helped personally to separate it as a job, and me as Kayleigh.” She has even opened shows with the mantra: “Don’t call me baby, don’t call me Kayleigh… you only get to call me one thing.” Thus, it was especially alarming when fans shared a series of identifying information about Roan and her family online in Summer of 2024. Fan accounts sent direct messages via Instagram and Facebook containing photos of Roan’s highschool yearbook, photos of Roan’s mother at their local gym, and sent text messages locating Roan’s neighborhood. They even harassed Roan’s family members via social media direct messaging. Roan, at the peak of her newfound fame, was faced with the doxxing of her family, the betrayal of fans invading her privacy, and the fear of her boundaries being overstepped and ignored altogether.
She took to TikTok on August 19th in a desperate attempt to convey the seriousness of fan intrusiveness on her life. When the post was received negatively, Roan posted a lengthy message to her Instagram, clarifying her original intent. The post read, “I’ve been in too many non-consensual physical and social interactions and I just need to lay it out and remind you, women don’t owe you shit… I do not accept harassment of any kind because I chose this path, nor do I deserve it. When I’m on stage, when I’m performing… I am at work. Any other circumstance, I am not in work mode, I am clocked out…I don’t owe a mutual exchange of energy, time, or attention to people I do not know.” The post was received more positively than the earlier series of TikTok videos had been.
Just two weeks after the TikTok videos, Roan attended the MTV Video Music Awards, where she walked the black carpet before going on to win Best New Artist 2024. While on the red carpet, Roan was recorded during a verbal altercation with a photographer, where Roan can be heard yelling, “You shut the fuck up! Don’t! Not me, bitch!” and pointing a finger in the direction of paparazzi. Viewers watching the carpet from at home were shocked, and many used this instance as a point of reference in doubling down on the stance that Roan is unfit for stardom.
The video is shocking: Roan, there in her 17th century robes and armor, shouting profanities at a photographer. However, what those watching the VMAs at home didn’t know was that Roan was actually responding to a member of the paparazzi who was being excessively rude and disrespectful towards her. In the full length video, the man can be heard off-camera saying, “Shut the fuck up, she needs to stop.” Presumably, the man was referring to Roan’s way of posing. Still, his response was unprofessional and unwarranted. Roan later gave an interview with Entertainment Tonight where she explained her side of the interaction, saying, “This is quite overwhelming and quite scary, I think for someone who gets a lot of anxiety around people yelling at you, the carpet is horrifying… I yelled back. You don’t get to yell at me like that.” In the same interview, Roan commented on her statements surrounding fans and her boundaries, stating, “I think that it’s hard for artists to speak up because they’re so scared of their fans hating them, but we’re not actually talking about fans. We’re talking about people who are harassing… it’s easier for me to stand up for myself, so of course I had to… I’m not taking this for the rest of my career.”
When spoken like that, it seems exceedingly simple: a young woman with a large amount of fame setting clear boundaries surrounding what makes her feel unsafe and uncomfortable. Why would anyone take issue with that? Chappell Roan proudly identifies as a lesbian, and throughout history, many queer women are stereotyped as a “mean lesbian.” It’s unclear where this stereotype originated from, but it has roots in assuming that traditionally masculine women are rude. If we’re equating masculinity to cruelty, wouldn’t that make all men who stand up for themselves mean? Tom Hanks famously yelled at paparazzi after they bumped into his wife, Rita Wilson, and the responses to that were overwhelmingly positive. Fans remarked that he was a strong-willed, protective man. When a woman defends herself, though, it’s suddenly unacceptable.
