Over the last seven months, 2024 has been widely dubbed as the year pop music became fun again. Sitting at the epicentre of pop’s revival is 26-year-old singer from Missouri, Chappell Roan.

On Wednesday (July 17), her episode on popular TikTok creator Drew Afaulo’s podcast The Comment Section was released. As well as discussing the allegations that she is an ‘industry plant’, drag culture, and performative celebrity activism, the American singer spoke about her relationship with fame.

“People have started to be freaks, [they] follow me and know where my parents live, and where my sister works. All this weird shit,” she said, speaking on her current situation with obsessive fans. “This is the time when a few years ago when I said that if [there were] stalker vibes or my family was in danger, I would quit. And we’re there. We’re there.”

Since the episode was released, many people have taken online to find out which fans she was talking about. Allegedly Roan was discussing a group fan account @midwestprincesshq – one of the most followed Chappel Roan fan accounts on Instagram with over 83,000 followers. According to other fan pages, one of the account admins, ‘Nova’ locked other admins out of the account and began to expose Roan’s family’s personal information, ultimately ending in Roan unfollowing the account.

In recent years, we’ve seen an increase in fans getting more entitled and behaving badly at shows, however, this is nothing new. Throughout the history of pop music generations of musicians have had dangerous experiences with parasocial fans and stalkers. Most infamously, back in 1995, Mexican-American singer Selena was murdered by the president of the official Selena fan club, who developed a parasocial and obsessive relationship with the singer.

Enjoying someone’s music and being a fan is one thing but when personal information begins getting leaked intentionally, it crosses into dangerous territory.

“I’m just kind of in this battle. I’ve pumped the brakes on, honestly, anything to make me more known,” Roan also said to Afaulo. “It’s kind of a forest fire right now. I’m not trying to go do a bunch of shit.” While she did not state what ‘pumping the breaks’ looks like for her, many on TikTok have noted that the rise as Chappel Roan has given pop new life – so here’s hoping it’s not a complete retreat from making music. 

Watch the full interview below: