Pop star Chappell Roan spoke about her mental health, falling in love and more during a Grammy Museum event Thursday night.
In a conversation moderated by musician Brandi Carlile, the 26-year-old singer and her producer Daniel Nigro broke down the making of several songs on her hit album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. The intimate event was part of the museum’s spotlight series.
“It just took a lot of years to convince people,” Roan told the crowd about why it took her and Nigro years to finish her debut album.
Roan’s album, which has spent 32 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, was released in September 2023, but took five years to complete. “I had no money. I had no numbers backing me up. I had an EP that did not do well by the music standards. I had toured, but no headlines,” she said. “There was nothing backing me up.”
“Pink Pony Club,” one of the Roan’s biggest songs this year, was one of the earlier songs she and Nigro worked on together. It was released in April 2020. “It was the worst time for a club anthem to come out,” Roan said, met with laughter from the crowd.
Brandi Carlile, Dan Nigro, and Chappell Roan attend Spotlight: A Night With Chappell Roan and Dan Nigro.
Rebecca Sapp/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
The singer said the song was a “complete 180” for her and how she dressed and performed at the time. “I wore only black on stage. It was very serious,” she said. “The second that I took myself not seriously is when things started working.
Roan, who uses a stage name, confirmed a big topic of discussion for fans of the singer. “Chappell is a character,” she said.
“I just can’t be here all the time. It’s just too much,” Roan said. She has previously spoken up about the rapid fame she’s experienced and how that has affected her. When asked about a mental health routine, the singer said it was changing, honestly sharing how her recent success has changed things. “My life is completely different now. Everything is out of whack right now,” she said.
“This type of year does something to people. Every big thing that happens in someone’s career happened in five months for me,” the singer said. “It’s so crazy that things I never thought would happen happened times 10. I think that that just really rocked my system. I don’t know what a good mental health routine looks like for me right now.”
Roan also opened up about falling in love. The singer’s song “Kaleidoscope,” which Carlile asked about particularly, tells the story of falling in love with a best friend. A very real situation for her, according to the singer. “I think that it’s specific to queer relationships because it is about falling in love with a friend,” she said, noting that queer relationships can often begin as friends and evolve.
“[I] told my friend that I was in love with her. She was like, ‘Can you just give me a day to think about this?’” Roan explained the crowd. “In that day that’s when I wrote that. I was like, ‘I’m going to fucking kill myself. I need to fucking get something together.’”
She said she doesn’t regret the experience. “I’m so grateful that that happened because one, for the first time I got confirmation that yeah, I am not a fraud for saying I’m gay,” Roan said. “Two, what an incredible person to fall in love with for the first time. Your best friend that you think is awesome and hilarious.”
Roan made her Saturday Night Live debut last week, performing Pink Pony Club and a new song, “The Giver,” on the live sketch show. The 26-year-old gave the crowd some hints about “The Giver,” a queer country anthem. “It’ll come out. It’ll come out, don’t worry,” she said, noting how fun the song was to write. “I got to bring what I knew to the table ’cause I’m a country girl.”