Dear Gossips,

I associate Chappell Roan with Sarah, because she's been talking about Chappell Roan for a while now, so I guess I’m bragging on her behalf for being one of the first to arrive at the Chappell Roan party. And this is a party that’s been getting bigger and bigger and BIGGER over the last year, particularly the first half of this year.

A couple of months ago, Mashable called her the “internet’s new favourite pop star”; two days ago, in a piece for Teen Vogue, P Claire Dodson wrote about how “Sabrina Carpenter & Chappell Roan’s Pop Stardom Feels So Satisfying”. Both are heading into the summer on top of the music industry and as Dodson notes, their fame “came slowly, then all at once”.

So how are they handling it? Where Chappell is concerned, she had a candid moment last night during her show in Raleigh, North Carolina. This is coming just days after her headline-making performance at Governor’s Ball in NYC on the weekend dressed up like the Statue of Liberty.

Chappell is a huge deal right now. And… well… she’s feeling the pressure, and she’s talking about feeling the pressure. Here she is last night:

If for some reason you can't see what happened in that video, she tells the audience that:

“I just want to be honest with the crowd. I feel a little off today, because I think my career is going really fast and it’s hard to keep up. I’m just being honest, I’m having a hard time today. I’m not trying to give you a lesser show. It’s just there’s a lot… So just thank you for understanding. This is all I’ve ever wanted.”

What happens when all you ever wanted is finally here? Every musician wants their music to be heard, for people to connect with it. Most of them dream of performing for a crowd of thousands and thousands, chanting every lyric. But can you ever really prepare for this level of…realisation? Like the thing you imagined actually materialising? It’s a total mindf-ck. And now here it is for Chappell Roan, not just “pop’s next big thing” but now, legitimately, pop’s big thing, now. But still with room to get even bigger. Because as big as she is today, she’s still very fresh into her beyond-the-internet breakthrough. For example, I saw her on local morning TV here in Toronto just a couple of hours ago. That’s a whole other level of recognition.

So it’s a good thing that she’s not only aware and staying present with her feelings and how she’s processing them in real time, but that she’s able to articulate them, and share them. Because, again, it’s not like it gets smaller from here. There’s only one way to go. As students of pop culture, then, it might be useful to mentally bookmark this moment and check back with it in a year or two, and see how it reads in context of her very, very bright future.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

Chappell Roan Gossip

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