Chappell Roan is unapologetically a “what you see is what you get” type of person.
Whether she is commanding the stage with her epic, drag show-style performances or going viral in red carpet moments of unrestrained directness, Roan never seems to fear being 100% percent of herself 100% percent of the time.
Even if it proves detrimental to her success.
Speaking with BBC’s Radio 1 on January 20, Roan disputed the notion that her no-holds-barred approach was an important piece to her rise in the music industry. In fact, Roan suggested to interviewer Jack Saunders that being less abrasive would likely push her to even loftier heights.
“I think that you get really successful if you are really not combative,” she said. “I think I would be more successful if I was OK wearing a muzzle.”
But that has never been Roan’s style, and expecting her to change would be a fool’s errand.
Dealing With Mental Health Challenges
GettyBorn February 19, 1998, in the conservatively Christian hotbed of southwest Missouri, about an hour north of Branson, Roan – whose given name is Kayleigh Rose Amstutz – has spoken about the difficulties of growing up in a region where being gay was considered a sin.
“I felt so out of place in my hometown,” she said in an October 2022 interview with Rolling Stone. “I wish it was better. I wish I had better things to say. But mentally, I had a really tough time.”
Roan has been particularly open about her mental health challenges. She was diagnosed with bipolar II in 2022 and posted a message in May of that year to her fans on Instagram that expressed how “it’s definitely been difficult to balance” her personal well-being while pursuing a career in such a highly public business.
“This job is very difficult for me to process and maintain a healthy life and mindset,” Roan said in a May 2023 TikTok video. “Everything is very exciting right now and I’m realizing that success actually makes me quite uncomfortable and self-conscious, and I’m not sure why yet.”
The Price of Success
GettyJust a few months later, on September 22, 2023, Roan released the album that would forever change her life: “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.” By June of 2024, it had reached the top spot in Ireland, New Zealand and the U.K., eventually climbing to No. 1 on the Billboard’s chart that August.
Unfortunately, that rapid success only further triggered Roan’s struggles with bipolar II disorder, and on September 27, 2024, Roan informed her fans via Instagram that she needed to postpone shows in New York City and Washington, D.C., to “prioritize my health.”
“Things have gotten overwhelming over the past few weeks and I am really feeling it,” she added.
That decision prompted a mixed reaction. Many of her fans showed support on the post with messages like “We support you Chappell Roan ❤️,” while others took to social media to criticize Roan as “unprofessional” and “not built for fame.”
But don’t expect Roan to disappear anytime soon. She was nominated for six Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist and Album of the Year, as well as Song and Record of the Year for “Good Luck, Babe.”
“The whole adoration part (of success) is so addictive and so not talked about,” Roan told Radio 1, after she was named BBC’s Sound of 2025. “I understand, like, why this feeling, why I’m so scared to lose it, because it’s so scary to think that one day people will not care about you the same way as they do right now.”
Roan Fires Back At Her Critics
EntertainmentNOW/GettyRoan took home the Grammy for Best New Artist during the ceremony on February 2, and as should come as no surprise, she used her acceptance speech as an opportunity to make a point by blasting record labels for failing to support artists, particularly the up-and-comers struggling to get a foothold in the business.
“I told myself if I ever won a Grammy and I got to stand up here in front of the most powerful people in music, I would demand that labels and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and healthcare, especially for developing artists,” she said, reading from a notebook.
“I got signed so young … and when I got dropped, I had zero job experience under my belt, and like most people, I had a difficult time finding a job in the pandemic, and could not afford health insurance. It was so devastating to feel so committed to my art and to feel so betrayed by the system and to be so dehumanized to not have healthcare. If my label would have prioritized artists’ health, I could have been provided care by a company I was giving everything to.
“Labels, we got you — but do you got us?”
While most in the crowd gave Roan a standing ovation during and following her speech, not everyone was pleased with her comments. In a February 5 guest column for The Hollywood Reporter, former music executive Jeff Rabhan criticized Roan’s acceptance speech as “a hackneyed and plagiarized script of an artist basking in industry love while broadcasting naïveté and taking aim at the very machine that got her there.”
But in true Chappel Roan form, the “Pink Pony Club” singer took to Instagram to put the ball back in Rabhan’s court, asking if he would “wanna match me $25k to donate to struggling artists?” Roan then promised to “keep everyone updated” on any potential response from Rabhan, vowing to “show receipts of the donations.”
Just as uncompromising as ever.
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‘Midwest Queen’ Will Not Compromise to Boost Her Career