Chappell Roan opened up about taking care of her mental health amid her seemingly overnight success, as well as sharing her queer journey that began with falling in love with her best friend.
In a wide-ranging interview at the Grammy Museum's Clive Davis Theater on Thursday alongside her producer Daniel Nigro and moderated by musician Brandi Carlile, Roan opened up about the past year and the whirlwind of experiences she's had. The 26-year-old's album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess was just nominated for several Grammys — including Album of the Year — and while many fans discovered her this year, the project was five years in the making. “It just took a lot of years to convince people,” she said.
Before performing two acoustic versions of her ballads, “Picture You” and “Casual,” Roan and Nigro discussed what's to come for her second album. Nigro noted that it's still in the “early stages” but both agreed that they bring different tastes to the table and collaborate well. Roan said that her new queer country song called “The Giver” which she debuted on Saturday Night Live last week, was coming out soon and was a reflection of her country roots.
“That was so fun to write that and bring what I knew to the table, because I’m a country girl,” Roan said of the song. “So I got to be like, ‘No, no, no, let me show you some country songs.'”
A lot of Roan's songs are about her journey as a queer woman and she spoke about how falling in love with her best friend “confirmed” her sexuality. Roan said that she wrote the song “Kaleidoscope” after confessing her feelings to her best friend and waiting on her answer. Ultimately, her friend did not have the same feelings, but Roan said the experience was “amazing”
“I think that it’s specific to queer relationships because it is about falling in love with a friend,” Roan said of the song. “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. And two, what an incredible person to fall in love with for the first time. Your best friend who you think is awesome and hilarious.”
“That's a really human coming out realization story,” Carlile said.
Roan said that the two were eventually able to stay friends after taking a “year off” from one another. “That's the beautiful relationships of women, that you can grow up and that's why lesbians are living with their exes and new girlfriends,” Roan said as the audience laughed.
The musician, whose real name is Kayleigh Amstutz, went on to speak about the persona of Chappell Roan and how she is a “character" that she puts on. When asked if she had a “mental health routine” that she was following amid her skyrocketing success, Roan said that “everything is out of whack right now."
“Every big thing that happens to someone's career happened in like five months for me,” Roan said. “So it's so crazy because things that I never thought would happen, happened times 10.”
She continued: “That just really rocked my system and I don't know what a good mental health routine looks like for me right now.”
