Noah Kahan Defends Chappell Roan After Paparazzi Incident, Boy George Says She Should “Cheer Up”

For almost two years, the matter of Chappell Roan's attitude has been a major subject of internet conversation. We should all just go get a life! Roan has a history of yelling at photographers, and people have read all kinds of stuff into that. It's like we're all so used to pop stars who have spent entire childhoods in Disney-sitcom charm school that we can't be normal about someone reacting to weird fame situations in non-robotic ways. Also, have you ever been around paparazzi? They are incredibly irritating! I spent a few hours in a room with some of them once (the press room of the 2005 CMAs), and I wanted to crawl out of my skin. Anyway, Chappell Roan's latest shutterbug run-in has inspired more discussion among her fellow pop stars.

Over the weekend, Chappell Roan was in Paris for Fashion Week. While going out to dinner one night, she was encircled by photographers and autograph hounds, and she got annoyed enough that she took out her phone and started filming them. While in a sarcastically calm and pleasant voice, she said:

...being disregarded as a human, this is what it's like. So I'm just trying to go to dinner, and I've asked these people several times to get away from me. This person, I've asked several times to go away, and they will not. They're hiding their face because they're ashamed. These are all the people that are completely disregarding all of my boundaries... All of you, I'm asking kindly to to please leave me alone and stop following me and harassing me. No, I’m not gonna sign. This is what it’s like, if you were wondering how it is.

As far as I know, Roan never posted her own video. But someone else posted a video of her making the video, and that one went viral.

In a post on his Instagram story on Tuesday, Roan's peer Noah Kahan jumped to her defense, writing, "Maybe they should just idk leave her alone? Also those dudes saying 'I'm a huge fan' following her around are scalpers and are as bad as paparazzi. Fuck em all."

As Variety reports, Kahan kept going. In a follow-up video post, Kahan said:

These people literally find out where you’re staying, where you’re flying into, where your team, family, whoever’s staying, and they are clearly not your fan. They just sit outside places and try to guilt you into signing shit so they can sell it. And they trick people like you who are just watching the video, who don’t know what’s going on, into thinking that someone’s being rude to one of their fans when they’re really just like manipulating you.

They’re scummy, they’re manipulative, they’re parasitic, and yeah, fuck ’em. Seriously, fuck them. Don’t feel bad for them. They’re not fans. They’re just businessmen trying to use human beings for profit and for their own gains. So they can get bent — eat fucking nails.

Boy George, someone who had his own run as an enfant-terrible pop star, took the opposite position. On Wednesday, he tweeted this:

It's probably not helpful but I have been doing this fame thing for a while and you learn slowly and painfully that you don't get a free pass once you turn yourself into a bird of paradise. I watched @ChappellRoan filming the paps in Paris and I laughed because I have kicked off at them many times. The trick is to own your fame. yes, it's annoying at times but so is being ignored and told your a 'has-been. Life is always now and I think Chappell looks great but cheer up girl. The world is at your feet stop kicking it! It takes so much more time to say no to a picture or a signature. Boundaries are boring. Break them with the magic of kindness!

In other news, People reports that Boy George recently said that he's been using AI to help him write music recently. In a podcast interview last week, he said that "there's so many great things" about AI and that he has "written like five albums already with AI." Allow him to elaborate:

I have fantastic conversations with ChatGPT, and I’ll say, "Oh that [lyric is] crap, that’s not what I would say." You can train it. And my manager last night was saying, "You know you’re talking to someone in China." I was like, "I couldn’t care less." I said, "It doesn’t matter."... An artist like me, they try to force you to work in an old-fashioned way. I’m ahead of them.

My advice is don't take this guy's advice.