In a video posted on her Instagram stories, singer Chappell Roan thanked people for listening to how she felt after she said she doesn’t consent to her fans touching her and making her feel uncomfortable.
“I’ve just said my peace,” Roan said on Instagram. “Now you know how I feel. When a woman is upset and says something, the automatic response is to be like, ‘yo chill.’ It’s not chill, so I’m not going to be chill.”
The Instagram video was uploaded five days after Roan posted on TikTok that she felt harassed and stalked by her fans.
“I don’t care that abuse and harassment and stalking is a normal thing to do to people who are famous or a little famous, whatever,” she said, emphasizing she “doesn’t give a fuck” if it’s selfish of her to not take a photo with a fan.
“I’m allowed to say no to creepy behavior,” Roan said.
In the caption of the TikTok, Roan said it wasn’t “directed at someone or a specific encounter,” it’s just her “side of the story.” Roan also didn’t clarify what specific behavior she was referring to, but wrote on Instagram that she’s been in “too many nonconsensual physical and social interactions.”
“When I’m on stage, when I’m performing … I am at work. Any other circumstance, I am not in work mode. … I don’t 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,” she wrote.
The comments on her TikTok were turned off, but people quickly pointed out the stark contrast between Roan and other musicians, like Taylor Swift and Katy Perry.
An old video of Swift resurfaced on X where she was asked how she dealt with all the attention, and she said she might get tired, but she never gets tired of “it.”
“When I go to a restaurant, yeah, I know that a line is probably going to form in front of the table, but didn’t I always used to wish for that?” Swift said. “Yeah, I did, so I never want to be the girl who wanted something so bad her whole life, just wanted one thing, and then gets it and then complains about it. I’m not going to be that girl.”
An old video of Perry also resurfaced where she says celebrities who don’t sign autographs for their fans don’t deserve to be in the celebrity position.
“The reason why I exist is because of those people,” Perry said. “They put me in this position and also a little bit of talent here and there… People buy the records, people come to the shows, people support me and my songs.”
Others took Roan’s side, saying that fans should respect another person’s boundaries, regardless if they’re a celebrity or not.
“I actually think it’s super sane and slay of Chappell Roan to repeatedly put her foot down about stalkers and explicitly outline the way she would like to be treated by fans in order to do her best artistic work and preserve [her] health. I hope people respect her boundaries,” one person wrote on X.
“chappell roan is not only right but it’s extended way beyond celebrity at this point. the type of shit that people (who dont even know you) will say or do to you for having any social media account with over 10k, or even 5k followers, is nuts,” another person wrote.
