Chappell Roan performs during Lollapalooza on August 1, 2024
Chappell Roan took to social media to once again express concern over invasive fan behavior and attempt to reaffirm boundaries.
The 26-year-old pop music artist—whose fame has skyrocketed during recent months with hits including “Good Luck Babe!” and “Hot To Go,” and a series of high-profile appearances at summer music festivals—during the past week posted two videos on TikTok followed by a lengthy message August 23 on Instagram criticizing invasive fans and calling out their “creepy behavior.”
Roan began building her music career a decade and had been slowly rising before she propelled into superstardom, including a recent appearance at Lollapalooza where a reported 110,000 fans packed the grounds to see her perform. The sudden jolt has come at a cost, she said.
“For the past 10 years I’ve been going non-stop to build my project and it’s come to the point that I need to draw lines and set boundaries,” she wrote in her Instagram post. “I feel more love than I ever have in my life,” she penned, adding, “I feel the most unsafe I have ever felt in my life.”
“When I’m on stage, when I’m performing, when I’m in drag, when I’m at a work event when I’m doing press… I am at work. Any other circumstance, I am not in work mode. I am clocked out. I do not agree with the notion that I owe a mutual exchange of energy, time, or attention to people I do not know, do not trust, or who creep me out – just because they’re expressing admiration. Women do not owe you a reason why they don’t want to be touched our talked to,” she wrote.
“I am specifically talking about predatory behavior (disguised as ‘superfan’ behavior) that has become normalized because of the way women who are well-known have been treated in the past. Please do not assume you know a lot about someone’s life, personality, and boundaries because you are familiar with them or their work online.”
Roan added, “If you’re still asking, ‘Well, if you didn’t want this to happen, then why did you choose a career where you knew you wouldn’t be comfortable with the outcome of success?’—understand this: I embrace the success of the project, the love I feel, and the gratitude I have. What I do not accept are creepy people, being touched, and being followed.”
This isn’t the first time Roan—who once was an opening act for Olivia Rodrigo and returned to as a surprise performer during Rodrigo’s recent shows in Los Angeles closing out the U.S. leg of her “Guts” tour—has spoken out feeling overwhelmed with her success.
In June during a show as part of her “Midwest Princess Tour,” Roan was visibly shaken on stage and took a moment to open up to her audience.
“I just want to be honest with the crowd: I just feel a little off today,” she said. “I think my career is just kind of going really fast and it’s really hard to keep up. I’m just being honest … I’m having a hard time today.”
And it’s not the first time she’s opened up about feeling unsafe due to fans exhibiting inappropriate conduct.
In July when she was a guest on host Drew Afualo’s podcast The Comment Section, Roan said, “People have started to be freaks… [they] follow me and know where my parents live, and where my sister works. All this weird shit. This is the time when a few years ago when I said that if [there were] stalker vibes or my family was in danger, I would quit. We’re there.”
