The Rise and Rise of a Pop Princess
The next generation of pop princesses is upon us—how do we keep the kingdom safe?
Chapppell Roan shot for the face by Sharna Osbourne, September 2024. Roan is wearing a Ludovic De Saint Sernin Shirt, trousers and Tie, and shoes from Maison Ernest Via theface.com © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
It’s hard to believe that at the beginning of 2024, Chappell Roan wasn’t a megastar, let alone not in the mainstream. In a career climb that not even Roan herself was ready for, she finishes her year having had seven singles in the Billboard Hot 200 at one time, attracted the biggest Lollapalooza crowd the festival thinks it has seen, and of course, has been cancelled on pockets of the internet from claims of ungratefulness and privilege regarding fan fulfillment and political views. Not long ago, the 26-year-old was taking orders in a drive-thru, and now she’s walking carpets and casually texting the likes of Lady Gaga and Billie Eilish. A proper rags-to-riches fairy tale, though a bit of scrutiny makes the instarise of Chappell Roan more of a Grimm Brothers novel than a Disney movie.
The summer of 2024 saw the rise of three pop princesses in particular, each tailored to the facets of bar and youth culture that have become pervasive since nightlife opened up: Sabrina Carpenter for girly girls wanting cocktails and a full roster, Charli XCX for the ravers and the gay guys they’re bonded to, and the subject of today’s discussion Chappell Roan, for the queer and the camp whose outfits are not complete without a funny look from the older generations as they walk by. Roan has cultivated her brand to attract this type of audience and thank god she did; ditching the Lana Del Rey-style sad pop that has plagued lesbian pop music in favor of the feeling of found community in 2022 single ‘Pink Pony Club’, or the outright rejection of that sadness in favor of an almost condescending apathy to the classic trope of lesbians playing second fiddle to someone’s man in ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ has allowed queerness in pop to be a feature and not a premise, opening the floodgates of Roan’s songwriting to talk about the lesbian love experience as well as making the listening experience for queer and straight people alike rightfully nuanced and diverse.
This ability to connect with Roan’s persona on an interpersonal level is why many of her fanbase feel more connected to her personhood than they are in reality. To echo the quote of Megan Ducan, Associate Professor of Communications at Virginia Tech from the 19th, “When you have a more niche identity or one that’s not everywhere you are certainly more likely to develop a stronger parasocial relationship with this person by seeing ‘oh this person and I share this identity that is minoritized and therefore I feel that stronger bond because there’s fewer of us out there’”. Roan has sought to create the safe space she wanted as a teenager in her live shows, incorporating drag into her stagecraft and wants to ‘[give a] space to people to be free’, offering relatability to lesbians and queer women both in her lyrics and her “give no damns take no prisoners” attitude that those who know can recognise as the mean lesbian archetype. This in particular offers relatability on a personal level: being a fellow blunt, abrasive lesbian with a history of mental ill health makes me feel like I understand Roan even if pop isn’t really my style, makes the sympathy for her boundaries being ignored easier to elicit for me, and makes the anger run deeper when I watch someone else get blamed for lashing out after trying to maintain decorum in the face of someone who feels free to be rude. As someone starting out in the creative industry her discussions of how it thrives on burnout and overexertion have hit home in particular, while her left-of-American-establishment political views are a lot easier to see and agree with as a European. Nevertheless, this understanding is one-sided, cultivated from reading her interviews, watching what she chooses to share on TikTok, and nights spent with my friends getting in line to do the Hot To Go dance, and the depth this connection can reach has led to disrespect of Roan’s space when she’s off the clock and navigating the world as Kayleigh Amsutz.
The controversy started for Roan in August with some TikToks she posted about fans and those that recognise her expecting a meet and greet interaction with the star when seeing her in a day-to-day setting, posing the question to her watchers if they would become angry if they had asked the same of a stranger on the street, finishing the sentiment with ‘I’m a random bitch, you’re a random bitch. Just think about that for a second, okay?’ In the second video, she states that it’s weird to feel you know someone based on their digital footprint, and characterizes pushing someone for photos or conversation as harassment. This led to a backlash from fans and followers of the sentiment that she was being ungrateful and she knew what she signed up for, to which she released a statement to Instagram on August 23rd laying down firm boundaries and opinions on her out-of-office fan interactions: don’t touch her, don’t be weird to her family and friends, and don’t call her Kayleigh. Equating superfan behavior to predatory behavior, she separates the love and gratitude of the community she’s built to being touched and followed, concluding the post with the statement ‘there is a part of myself that I save just for my project and all of you. There is a part of me that is just for me, and I don’t want that taken away from me’.
This would not mark the end of the controversies that Roan would find herself in a political debate around Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and a smaller-scale issue stemming from a back and forth with a photographer where Roan was seen on camera retorting to his ask to ‘shut the f*ck up’ by telling him no he should, finishing with a ‘not me bitch’ before getting back in line. Roan, who has since been open with being of a blunter and abrasive persuasion, would then fall down the rabbit hole of the lack of endorsement for Harris in the 2024 US presidential election due to her policy issues with the American left due to her support for Palestine in the war in Gaza and her passion for trans rights. These views were already in the public domain before the Guardian interview that would ignite these flames was released on September 16th; a Rolling Stone interview on the 10th of that month featured Roan declining a performance at The White House pride events that June on those issues and a wish to not be ‘a monkey for pride.’ Though these sentiments are shared by her fanbase at large, the comment in said Guardian article of there being ‘problems on both sides’ was focused on by the internet community, once again seeing her branded and privileged with the option to not endorse and some claims that she was a covert Trump supporter. Frustrated, Roan once again took to her TikTok to reiterate the full quote from the guardian article urging American voters to use their critical thinking skills and to vote for what is going on in their city, adding that she questions everything from the world leaders to her algorithm and asks individuals to focus on her actions (such as the examples in the Guardian article of her donating £1 a ticket to Kaleidoscope and selling prints to raise money for aid in Palestine) rather than the need to endorse a specific candidate. This did not successfully quell the backlash, and in a more frustrated follow-up video where she explains that there is a difference between what public figures endorse and who they vote for, stating clearly that she won’t be voting for Trump, will be voting for Harris but was ‘not settling for the options that are put in front of [her]’. The stir around her voting intentions seemed to have driven the cancellation of performances at All Things Go on the 27th of September, where she states that it was time to “prioritize her health” and that “she wants to be present when she performs and give the best show possible”.
These cancellations, though, make up the trifecta of controversy that Roan faced in her explosion over the summer. She had cancelled two of her Europe dates and rescheduled another before the Harris issues had gone down, leaving many fans angry when these smaller venues had been booked before the explosion so it was hard enough to get tickets in the first place. This is possibly the only issue where I’d be more likely to side with the fans rather than Roan: the cancellations had occurred due to ‘scheduling conflicts’ and were announced less than a fortnight before the event, meaning most likely fans had already paid and budgeted for travel and accommodation and were counting the days. This said, the argument to be made is more on the side of her management rather than Roan herself, evidenced by the press run she appeared to have done before crossing the pond for these dates: many of the articles that have been referenced in this piece alone came out in the timeframe between the cancellation and when she came to the UK, indicating she was being booked for back-to-back interviews then expected to go on a long haul flight for a continental tour straight away.
This type of back-to-back work may be normal for vets of the industry, but keep in mind the timeframe being discussed: Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess was released September 2023, then Good Luck, Babe debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at the end of April while touring with Olivia Rodrigo, then cuts that short for a two-month headline tour beginning with Coachella—the infamous Lollapalooza show is the first weekend in August, then she’s doing press runs and supposed to do a Europe tour until the end of September. Just looking at this schedule would make the highest energy individual need a nap—no wonder the woman is exhausted and wants to get coffee and go thrifting without having a photo taken. Even though the peers we mentioned before, being Charli XCX and Sabrina Carpenter, were embarking on their own international expeditions both already had tours and connections under their belt, with Ms. XCX having some pop fame in the early 2010s while Ms. Carpenter was in the Disney machine and had been walking carpets and managing schedules while Roan was stealing cigarettes to smoke on her porch.
The trifecta of controversy for Roan represents the issues for the modern popstar that are becoming more apparent in the social media age, the issues that many have with the star can be summed up in her need for rest and her personality and outlook not matching those of the people who enjoy her music. The benefits of growing a social media following when she was still trying to break into the industry turned into the breeding ground for controversy when that break was the size of a meteor; the freedom that an emerging star has on these channels to connect with their fans and build a personality can turn into a catch-22 where the sentiments ‘maybe your publicist should handle your social media’ and ‘we want to see the authentic versions of the people we platform’ are equally valid. In a similar vein, those in fandom often praise the discussion of mental health issues by musicians as normalization and opening a conversation, but the career-inhibiting aspects of needing longer breaks and having less patience than the average are not given the grace that the sentiment demands.
There are ways that Roan has tried to offset this, such as the clear labeling of Chappell Roan as a ‘project’ in many of the interviews she has given. Like in the drag world, the persona of Chappell Roan is its own entity, based on the goals, lifetime, and aesthetic preferences of Kayleigh Amsutz sure but is a character created and performed. The Chappell Roan project is about giving people raw and real yet fun and full-bodied pop music, uses what is happening in the culture to make a point while building a community based on freedom of expression, but the project is not her. It’s supposed to be more than her, but the mix of her big personality and her label trying to push for as much exposure as possible while the rod is hot (In My Opinion!) has meant that even with the clearest of boundaries set only months into her stardom it was too late—the lines had been blurred and the parasocial bond only strengthened by the knowledge that gasp a woman could have more than one facet to her personality.
