There has been a recent uptick in hate against the new upcoming popstar,
your “favorite artist’s favorite artist,” Chappell Roan.
After 10 years of her music career, as of this summer, she’s seemingly become mainstream overnight. But despite the Girls and the Gays™ loving her, she has a persistent hate cult that wishes for nothing but her downfall. Why is that, and why does the hate she is receiving go much deeper than just internet celebrity drama?
Who is Chappell Roan?
Some might not know who Chappell Roan is and have only heard of her or listened to one or two of her songs. For the people that don’t know, she is a lesbian pop singer who has popped off the past few months, known for her popular songs such as “HOT TO GO!” or “Good Luck, Babe!” circulating around social media apps like TikTok.
She started her music career in November of 2014, getting her footing at 17 years old when she was picked up by Atlantic Records. However, in 2020, she released Pink Pony Club, which underperformed due to not having a tour to boost it, leading to her getting dropped. Soon after she was dropped, however, she was picked back up by Dan Nigro, a musician and songwriter who has written for Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, Conan Gray, and more. He created his own label, Amusement Records, and worked with Island Records to have Chappell Roan be the first artist he signed. He helped with the production of Chappell’s album, The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess. Since then, she’s been able to open for Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour and Guts tour and go on tours herself, which is when she really started getting popular. She started growing exponentially as of April. She was at one million monthly listeners in January 2024, but is now at 45.2 million monthly listeners as of September.
She started her music career in November of 2014, getting her footing at 17 years old when she was picked up by Atlantic Records. However, in 2020, she released Pink Pony Club, which underperformed due to not having a tour to boost it, leading to her getting dropped. Soon after she was dropped, however, she was picked back up by Dan Nigro, a musician and songwriter who has written for Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, Conan Gray, and more. He created his own label, Amusement Records, and worked with Island Records to have Chappell Roan be the first artist he signed. He helped with the production of Chappell’s album, The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess. Since then, she’s been able to open for Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour and Guts tour and go on tours herself, which is when she really started getting popular. She started growing exponentially as of April. She was at one million monthly listeners in January 2024, but is now at 45.2 million monthly listeners as of September.
What is happening? Why do people dislike her?
During the past few months, just like any person who has gotten an immense amount of popularity quickly (especially female celebrities), there have been a lot of haters directed towards Chappell because of how popular she’s gotten. People claim she’s an industry plant, someone who’s backed by a large label and finds quick success regardless of talent (despite her taking ten years to become truly successful), that she’s no different from any other popular pop artist, that she bought her way to fame, and many other different theories as to why she’s gained 40 million fans in nine months.
The amount of haters has recently increased ever since she made a TikTok video calling out some of her creepy fans’ behavior. On August 19th, Chappell Roan uploaded two TikToks calling out weird fans’ audacity. She explains in the video that you wouldn’t go up to a random lady on the street, ask for her picture or autograph, and get so mad that she refused to abide by your wishes that you would do things such as harass her family, stalk her, and bully her online. Chappell states that, despite her being a celebrity, fans don’t have the right to demand anything from her at any time because at the end of the day, she is still a stranger we’ve never met, and it’s weird people think that celebrities owe them anything. That video is now at 15.6 million views, and people had many different opinions about her statement.
Opinions on the call out seems to be split down the middle. While a lot of Chappell’s fans supported her, agreeing with her that the fans Chappell describes in her video are weird for thinking that celebrities owe them anything just because they’re fans and made their career, there is an equally large number of people, including some fans, that weren’t as fond of the video. A lot of people made claims that she “clearly” wasn’t ready to become a huge celebrity and that she needs to change her mindset or quit. Some other opinions that were popular on Twitter were how she isn’t just “a random stranger”, how she shouldn’t be yelling at her fans for wanting a picture or a hug, and that having creepy fans is just part of a celebrity’s job and she has to put up with it because “it won’t change”.
Since those TikToks were uploaded, Chappell Roan has gotten an immense amount of hate, more than she’s ever seen in her career. Despite all this, she continues to stand her ground, and this wasn’t her first time speaking about it either. In July, she went on TikTok influencer Drew Afualo’s podcast, The Comments Section. On the podcast, she talks about the hardships that come with becoming a female celebrity and how that includes being expected to put up with creepy fans’ behaviors and that fans think they’re entitled to anything from Chappell just because they’re fans of her. Recently, she also did an interview where she explained why she made the series of TikToks. Between being stalked, having her dad’s phone number leaked, and being assaulted at a club while celebrating with friends where a fan came up to her and physically forced her to kiss them, she decided enough was enough and made the TikTok videos. It has also recently come out that since Chappell made those TikToks, other popular musicians such as Mitski, Billie Eilish, Charlie xcx, Sabrina Carpenter, Lady Gaga, and more reached out to Chappell to show their support and similar experience they’ve had with fans that they were also told to put up with being famous.
Ever since the main reason why Chappell made the TikToks was revealed, people started to understand why she reacted the way she did in the videos; however, there’s still a large amount of people who continue to hate on her. When people realized that the main demographic of people who continue to hate her are men, the real reason they have such a problem with her starts to become clear. The topic of consent came up a lot in these conversations, and a certain demographic of men seems to really dislike that. Something that was mentioned by fans and Chappell herself is that it’s only ever female artists who are given this treatment and are expected to put up with it with no complaints given. It all stems from nothing other than misogyny!
The hate Chappell has been receiving goes far deeper than just celebrity drama to be brushed off. It stems from a lot of misogynistic views, which makes sense when you realize that most of Chappell’s haters are either men (including gay men and male drag queens), or women who hold similar internalized misogyny. A lot of the responses towards Chappell are quite similar to what women would be told if they were catcalled, harassed, kidnapped, assaulted, etc.
A topic that was being brought up a lot by the people that were criticizing Chappell was that it was “just a part of being a celebrity,” she needs to just deal with it, speaking out about it isn’t going to do anything, and nothing is ever going to change. This is a mindset that is seen from people who criticize women for speaking up about awful experiences they have had that are deemed as “just a part of womanhood.” This harmful mindset makes people believe that change is incapable of happening and anything anybody does to speak out against mistreatment is a hopeless case. These people are trying to convince themselves that Chappell is the problem for speaking out against parasocial fans who think they know her rather than the creepy fans that are making her feel this way in the first place. This mindset is what created the phrase “boys will be boys.”
The topic of safety when it comes to female celebrities was often mentioned during this topic as well. There have been many cases of celebrities being killed by fans, like Christina Gimmie. She did everything right as a celebrity (according to the people criticizing Chappell). She never complained, always did what fans asked her to do, was always friendly and never rude, yet she was still killed. Chappell wants to create a safe work environment not only for herself, but for other women in similar situations, so why is it so controversial? It begs the question: at what point is it considered not normal? At what point is creepy stan behavior too creepy? At what point does a parasocial fan turn to possibly your cause of death? At what point will people stop making excuses for “fans” and start seeing this as a real issue? Why do people refuse to see celebrities as humans who deserve just as much privacy and security as any normal human being?
Moral of the story? Chappell didn’t do anything wrong; it always leads back to misogyny; celebrities are people, too.
Stream Good Luck, Babe and Picture You!
