Chappell Roan revealed that a fan grabbed and kissed her without permission while discussing the frustrating interactions she’s had this year amidst her meteoric rise in a new Rolling Stone cover story.
Roan said the kissing incident occurred in August at a bar while she was celebrating a friend’s birthday. Later that same night, she found out that someone had called her father after his phone number leaked online. These two incidents prompted Roan to release a pair of TikTok videos and a social media statement demanding privacy and denouncing inappropriate fan behavior.
Speaking with Rolling Stone before those social media posts, Roan said of her fans, “They need to see me as a random bitch on the street. You can’t yell at a random bitch who’s on the sidewalk that you don’t know. It’s considered catcalling or harassment.”
While Roan has hired security, her summer has been filled with unsettling occurrences. She revealed that she has a stalker who’s shown up at her parents’ house in Missouri and once came to her hotel room in New York. When she flew to Seattle in July, fans figured out her flight info, and she said one berated her after she declined to sign an autograph (eventually, airport police showed up). The same man was waiting at the airport with the paparazzi when she returned to Los Angeles.
“I got home and dropped to my knees,” Roan said. “I have a hard time crying now because of my meds, but I sobbed and was screaming.” (Roan takes medication for bipolar II disorder, which she also discusses in the story.)
In the midst of all this, Roan revealed that she’s received an outpouring of support and advice from her peers in the music industry, including Billie Eilish, Elton John, Charli XCX, Katy Perry, Troye Sivan, Miley Cyrus, the members of boygenius, Orville Peck, Noah Kahan, and Sabrina Carpenter.
But Roan said she’s still trying to figure out how to balance her newfound celebrity while being able to live some semblance of a life in public (she said she was even considering cutting her hair and dying it a different color).
“I don’t want to be agoraphobic. That’s [how] most of my peers [feel],” she said. “Every fucking artist is on this page. Everyone is uncomfortable with fans. Some people just have more patience. I fucking don’t.”
