One of this year’s great pop stories is the fast, astonishing rise of Chappell Roan, the newly crowned pop star who seems deeply ambivalent about her own stardom. In recent weeks, Roan has made headlines by attempting to establish boundaries between herself and her fans. She talks more about the invasiveness of public visibility in a new feature in The Face, saying that her job now forces her to interact with people who give off “the vibe of an abusive ex-husband.”

In her recent Rolling Stone cover story, Chappell Roan talked about all the support that she’s gotten from her fellow pop-star women. The Face feature has more such stories — she says that Lady Gaga and Charli XCX were “immediately, immediately supportive” of her when her career started to take off — and that “no one understands except other artists.” She continues:

I feel ambitious about making this sustainable. That’s my biggest goal right now. My brain is like: quit right now, take next year off… This industry and artistry fucking thrive on mental illness, burnout, overworking yourself, overextending yourself, not sleeping. You get bigger the more unhealthy you are. Isn’t that so fucked up?… The ambition is: how do I not hate myself, my job, my life, and do this? Because right now, it’s not working. I’m just scrambling to try to feel healthy.

In the article, Roan describes a troubling encounter that she had early one morning at the airport:

I get out of the car, it’s 5.30 in the morning, and there’s two guys waiting with a bunch of posters and shit for me to sign. I know they’re not fans. I said no. I was like, ​”I don’t sign anything at the airport, I’m sorry.” [One of them] follows me to the TSA line, starts yelling at me and everyone just turns and looks. He’s like: ​”You should really humble yourself. Do you know where you are right now? Don’t forget where you came from.” I’m just like: ​”What the fuck is going on?” I told myself, if this ever gets dangerous, I might quit. It’s dangerous now, and I’m still going. But that part is not what I signed up for… I feel like fame is just abusive. The vibe of this — stalking, talking shit online, [people who] won’t leave you alone, yelling at you in public — is the vibe of an abusive ex-husband. That’s what it feels like. I didn’t know it would feel this bad.

Roan says that she went to an airport bathroom to cry and to text Lorde for advice: “She sent me a list of things I should do [in that situation]. Literally wrote down eight things she wished someone would have told her when she was going through it. And she went through fucking hell. She was a baby!”

But Roan also talks about how inspired she feels at the opportunity to help people who are going through things: “I can’t read my DMs anymore, because I cry so much.” And she says that she feels a little weird about the awards shows that she might have in her future: “My mom would love to go to the Grammys or the Brits… I’m kind of hoping I don’t win, because then everyone will get off my ass: ​’See guys, we did it and we didn’t win, bye!’ I won’t have to do this again!” You can read the full profile here.

Chappell Roan also recently told Konbini that her breakout single “Good Luck, Babe!” was originally called “Good Luck, Jane!”: “I wrote it because I fell in love with this girl and she started dating this fucking loser of a guy.”

Le morceau ne devait pas s'appeler "Good Luck, Babe!”

On a eu la chance de papoter avec @chappellroan, la future superstar de la pop pour qu'elle nous dévoile tous les secrets sur son méga hit. pic.twitter.com/SiPHV72mX8

— Konbini (@KonbiniFr) September 12, 2024

Rolling Stone ran some interview outtakes, too. In one, Chappell Roan says that she’s “too tired” to make a video for “Good Luck, Babe!”: “Do you know how hard it is to do a music video when you’re this exhausted and burnt?… I stood my ground and I said I’m not going to take every social opportunity. I’m not going to take every brand deal. I’m not going to take every suggestion, because at the end of the day, it’s me doing the manual labor that everyone else thinks I should just be doing.”

Roan also says that she “shot [herself] in the foot with her decision to plan an overarching theme for every live show: “People love it, so I do it for the people at this point because it really means a lot to them, and it means a lot to me. But now I’m stuck in all these fucking themes… I think we are eventually going to run out of themes, so I’m dreading that, but I like to keep it weird and fresh because it’s exciting for the fans to be like, ‘Oh my God, what is she going to walk out in?'”