Luisa Bernardino

Chappell Roan, a new pop sensation turned heads with her hit “Good Luck Babe!” over the summer.

Imagine someone following you into a coffee shop as you’re trying to get your daily iced latte. You turn around, and someone with an eager stare in their eyes is right behind you, holding one of your CDs and a pen. Suddenly, you realize that you will spend your entire life constantly being perceived by strangers who think they know you.

One day a small-town Midwest princess turns into your artist’s favorite artist. Chappell Roan, a new pop sensation turned heads with her hit “Good Luck Babe!” over the summer, causing her to blow up in the music world. However, as she continued to climb the charts, much like other celebrities, her safety was compromised.

On Sept. 11, Chappell Roan performed at the VMAs for the first time. This was after Roan’s Instagram post that set boundaries with fans and criticized the burden of fame. On the VMA red carpet, a paparazzi yelled at the singer causing Roan to snap and yell back.

“I yelled back! You don’t get to yell at me like that,” Roan said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.

No matter what level of fame a person has, nobody deserves to be verbally and physically harassed daily. Roan is one of the first celebrities in a long time to state her boundaries and fight back against harassment.

“I’m not afraid of the consequences for demanding respect,” singer-songwriter Roan said.

Last month, Chappell came out on Instagram to express her concerns and frustrations about fans crossing boundaries when encountering her in person.

Fans have gone as far as finding where she went to high school, visiting said high school, and even following her parents. Her fanbase is split in half between some defending her and others attempting to justify the harmful interactions.

“Women do not owe you a reason why they don’t want to be touched or talked to,” Roan said.

Recently, Chappell revealed that she had been diagnosed with severe clinical depression just two weeks following the incident at the VMAs. Her immense popularity gain has taken a huge toll on her mental health, which goes to show how society fails to remember celebrities are people too.

“Everything that I really love to do now comes with baggage,” Roan said during an interview with The Guardian. “Going to the park, pilates, yoga–how do I do this in a safe way where I’m not going to be stalked or harassed?”

After Roan’s initial Instagram post, real fans and fellow celebrities showed their support for Chappell. And on the other hand, some of the internet attacked Roan for sharing how she felt.

Online, people were claiming that the singer “didn’t deserve” her fame and just had to “deal with the consequences.” Some of the post viewers also found Roan comparing her harassment to a woman getting catcalled distasteful, sparking more harassment, further proving her point.

Luckily for the rising pop star, during an interview on the VMA red carpet, she praises fans for listening to her boundaries and states she feels heard after her statement.

X user @evrrmxry tweeted, “Becoming famous so quickly is not easy especially for a bipolar girl. The hate she receives for the simple fact that she wants her privacy is horrible.”

Although this still does not make up for the harassment she continues to receive, it proves that celebrities can have a respectful relationship with fans, and steps are being taken to achieve that with Roan.

If a man were to speak out about the harassment that derived from fame, he would get more praise than backlash. The hate towards Roan is rooted deep in misogyny in the industry. The moment a woman speaks up about how she has been treated, the public is quick to throw her under the bus, saying she is “too dramatic” or “not fit for fame.”

With social media in today’s age, fans forming parasocial relationships have become a more recurrent problem. They tend to act like they know their favorite celebrity a lot more than they actually do.

Celebrities are real people with real feelings and not just someone inside of a screen. They should not have to compromise their mental well-being for the satisfaction of complete strangers.