Chappell Roan Talks “Super Weird” New Album, “Lame” Stalker, And All The Support She’s Getting From Fellow Pop Stars
Last month, Chappell Roan posted two TikToks rebuking her fans’ invasive behavior and attempting to set boundaries. Today, the pop phenomenon was on the cover of Rolling Stone and told the magazine about her turbulent experience with becoming famous meteorically and shared details about her next album.
Roan has mentioned having a stalker before, but revealed to Rolling Stone that the person has shown up to her parents’ home and even Roan’s hotel room in New York, and is the reason she has security. “It’s so lame,” she said. She’s been mobbed by fans and paparazzi at airports, and a fan grabbed and kissed her at a bar last month.
Many fellow musicians have checked in on her; she names Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, Hayley Williams, Katy Perry, Lorde, Muna, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Sabrina Carpenter, and the three members of boygenius. Mitski also sent her a long email: “I just wanted to humbly welcome you to the shittiest exclusive club in the world, the club where strangers think you belong to them and they find and harass your family members,” an excerpt reads.
The 26-year-old said not a lot of men have offered their help, except for Troye Sivan, Orville Peck, Noah Kahan, and Elton John, the latter of whom told Rolling Stone: “I am very protective of her. She is kind, innocent, and wonderful. She is not ‘Chappell Roan’ offstage — a bit like me. She is one of those people who I felt like I have known for a long time.”
Roan added about the situation, “I don’t want to be agoraphobic. That’s [how] most of my peers [feel]. Every fucking artist is on this page. Everyone is uncomfortable with fans. Some people just have more patience. I fucking don’t.”
As for a new album, she divulged about what she’s been working on with her producer Dan Nigro: “We have a country song. We have a dancy song. We have one that’s really Eighties, and we have one that’s acoustic, and we have one that’s really organic, live-band, Seventies vibe. It’s super weird.”
Her debut The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess turns one on Sept. 22. She debuted “Subway” at Gov Ball, about which she said, “I just like performing it. I have two others that I really want to perform, too, [but] I don’t know what’s next. When I don’t know, it just hasn’t hit me yet because usually I know. I always have an answer. I don’t think it’s ‘Subway.’”