Though Chappell Roan’s stage persona is confident and colorful, it’s just that: a stage persona. The singer has long been open about her mental health, revealing in a new interview that she has been diagnosed with severe depression.
In a new profile in the Guardian, published Friday, the “Hot to Go!” singer got more candid than ever about the effects of her sudden rise to fame. She told the publication that she goes to therapy twice a week, and that she went to a psychiatrist the week before the interview took place “because I was like, I don’t know what’s going on.”
“She diagnosed me with severe depression – which I didn’t think I had because I’m not actually sad,” Roan said. But when she was diagnosed, her symptoms — brain fog, memory issues, inability to focus, and “a very lackluster viewpoint,” suddenly made sense.
While Roan is living a dream come true, she’s also had to deal with the dark sides of fame, including the backlash she’s faced for laying down basic boundaries with fans. She touched on that in conversation with the Guardian, musing that she thinks her depression stems from the fact that her “whole life has changed.”
“Everything that I really love to do now comes with baggage. If I want to go thrifting, I have to book security and prepare myself that this is not going to be normal,” she said. “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?”
The sudden inability to engage in private life in the way she was once able to is especially devastating considering that Roan’s artistic project has centered on creating safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people like her. She told the Guardian that “every time I walk through my front door” she starts to cry. “It just comes out of me,” she said.
“I can’t even help it, I just start sobbing and either being so angry at myself for choosing this path, or grieving how the curiosity and pure wonder I had about the world is somewhat taken away from me,” she said.
Though Roan says she is experiencing fame as a process of grief, she is also intent on using her platform to make change. According to the Guardian, £1 of every one of her U.K. tour tickets will go to LGBTQ+ charity Kaleidoscope Trust, and at her recent Manchester concert, she sold signed risograph prints for £100, with all of the proceeds going toward aid for Palestine. When asked about that, Roan said, “It’s just my duty to help send resources to a community that is absolutely being destroyed.”
When it comes to the U.S. presidential race, Roan told the Guardian that she doesn’t “feel pressured to endorse someone” because “there’s problems on both sides.”
“I encourage people to use your critical thinking skills, use your vote – vote small, vote for what’s going on in your city,” she said, adding that one major change she wants to see in the U.S. this election cycle is “trans rights. They cannot have cis people making decisions for trans people, period.”
Chappell Roan, they could never make me hate you.
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