Chappell Roan: What 2025 has in store for the US star

Chappell Roan is your favourite artist’s favourite artist, at least according to Google’s search engine.

The US star has been one of 2024’s great pop success stories, with her bold tracks soaring up the charts across the world.

Her ascent picked up last year when the Missouri singer’s debut album, The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess, began to gather a cult following.

Four years in the making, the 26-year-old’s record is the story of a small-town girl discovering her true self and embracing her sexuality.

The honest exploration of identity, heartbreak and belonging within her lyricism, injected into fun, cheeky pop hooks, has gripped the masses.

While her meteoric rise may seem like it’s happened overnight, Roan has been grafting on her music and online persona for around a decade. The singer began uploading covers to YouTube as a teenager under Kayleigh Rose, her real first and middle name.

She secured her first deal with Atlantic Records at 17 after attracting attention with her original track ‘ Die Young’, which she wrote at an arts summer camp at Interlochen in Michigan. Roan has hailed the camp as a moment which changed her life as it is where she was first introduced to fellow songwriters after growing up in a conservative and deeply religious community where queerness was not accepted.

The record deal opened doors into the industry for the singer, who proceeded to release material with a darker, more alternative vibe.

She later moved from the Midwest to Los Angeles and it is here she discovered the popular gay bar The Abbey in West Hollywood—which inspired her 2020 hit single ‘ Pink Pony Club’. The disco anthem showcased Roan’s soaring vocals and captured hearts with its tale of pursuing your passion despite others’ disapproval.

Despite the positive reception to her pop pivot, she was dropped by Atlantic and the singer took some time to focus on her mental health. She later signed to Island Records which has platformed her drag queen-inspired alter-ego that fans have come to know and love.

She previously told the BBC that she couldn’t be Chappell Roan all the time as she would be “absolutely exhausted”. But her theatrical persona allows her to take to the stage in high-camp outfits which feature bold eyeshadow looks, or to rock up to her interview with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show in a custom-made swan dress.

Her Joan Of Arc-inspired performance of her hit ‘ Good Luck, Babe!’ at the MTV VMAs last year heightened the theatrics further, with Roan clad in body armour on stage.

She has encouraged her fans to lean into the campness, requesting for them to dress to themes, including Midwest princess, mermaid and pink pony club, when attending shows for her album tour. Her high-octane tracks have also inspired viral dance routines, with the refrain of her hit ‘Hot To Go!’ igniting packed festival crowds and busy night clubs to spell out the title with their arms while chanting the lyrics.

She particularly caught the attention of the LGBT community as she unabashedly explores her sexuality, from messy heartbreak to discoveries of love.

“It’s so nice that people have started to take queer artists seriously outside of their queerness,” she told Rolling Stone.

Roan has been honest about her struggles with mental health and how skyrocketing to fame in the past year has impacted her. During a concert in North Carolina in June, the singer became emotional on stage as she opened up about how she was feeling.

“I just want to be honest with the crowd. I feel a little off today because I think that my career has just gone really fast and it’s really hard to keep up,” she told the crowd in a clip shared online. “So I’m just being honest, I’m just having a hard time today.”

She has also called out what she describes as “creepy behaviour” from members of the public.

“I don’t care that abuse and harassment, stalking, whatever is a normal thing to do to people who are famous, or a little famous, or whatever,” she said in a TikTok video shared in August.

“I don’t care that it’s normal. I don’t care that this crazy type of behaviour comes along with the job, the career, field I’ve chosen.

“That does not make it okay. That doesn’t make it normal. Doesn’t mean I want it. Doesn’t mean that I like it.”

She later said in an Instagram post that she needs to “draw lines and set boundaries” with her fans due to the harassment she has been receiving.

“I’ve been in too many non-consensual physical and social interactions and I just need to lay it out and remind you, women don’t owe you shit,” she wrote.

“I chose this career path because I love music and art and honouring my inner child, I do not accept harassment of any kind because I chose this path, nor do I deserve it.”

It’s been a mammoth 12 months for the singer,but the new year should cement her pop star status even further.

She is nominated for an impressive six gongs at the upcoming Grammy Awards. Her hit ‘ Good Luck, Babe!’ will go up against global megastars including Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and The Beatles for the prestigious record of the year award.

It has also picked up a nod in the song of the year and best pop solo performance categories, while her chart-topping record has been nominated for album of the year and best pop vocal album. She is also nominated for the best new artist prize.

Roan will entertain the masses when she headlines Reading and Leeds festivals and takes to the stage at Primavera Sound in Barcelona this summer.

Her megahit ‘ Good Luck, Babe!’ was the only new single she released last year, but the artist appeared to tease in October that she was working on new music.

“Album kinda popped off imo (in my opinion) but it is time to welcome a hot new bombshell into the villa,” she wrote on Instagram.

While living up to her debut won’t be an easy task, the star has proved she should never be underestimated.