Old Taylor Swift Interviews About Fame Aren't a 'Gotcha!' Against Chappell Roan
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Less than a day after Chappell Roan shared a TikTok calling out fans for stalking and harassing behavior, people online are bringing back old Taylor Swift interviews in a misguided attempt at a gotcha moment against Roan. In the process, these critics are simply proving the point: the culture around celebrities and fandom and fame is broken, and no one is immune from the way it f*cks up both fans and the objects of their intense adoration.
Roan's initial commentary, delivered in two brief TikToks, was straight-to-the-point. She's generally direct in interviews on stage, she doesn't mince words, and she's not afraid of hurting people's feelings when it comes to expressing what she believes. None of what she said should be shocking if you're familiar with her music and interviews.
“I don’t care that this crazy type of behavior comes along with the job, the career field I’ve chosen. That does not make it OK. That doesn’t make it normal. That doesn’t mean that I want it. That doesn’t mean that I like it,” she said in one video. “I don’t want whatever the f*ck you think you’re supposed to be entitled to whenever you see a celebrity. I don’t give a f*ck if you think it’s selfish of me to say no for a photo or for your time, or a hug. That’s not normal. That’s weird. It’s weird how people think that you know a person just because you see them online and you listen to the art they make. That’s f*cking weird. I’m allowed to say no to creepy behavior, OK?”
Related: Chappell Roan Talks “Casual” Music Video, Trans Rights, and Creating the Pink Pony Club of Her Dreams
It was met with mixed reactions; many have defended Roan's right to privacy and her right to parse out the difficulties of such a sharp ascent in the public eye. Others, meanwhile, argue that she — like all celebrities — owes fans her livelihood, that you take the evil of fame when you sign on for the wealth and acclaim, that even if she was making some points, she could have phrased it better.
Enter: a Taylor Swift who, in her teens and early twenties, was extremely good at playing the part of an endlessly grateful and gracious celebrity. An artist who always always, always prioritized her fans, thanked them, spent time with them, gave them more and more and more. Who, now, is being propped up against Roan in terms of their approach to fame as some kind of callout of Roan's right to be treated like a person.
In one interview currently circulating on X and TikTok, Swift imitates her fellow celebs, “They're like, 'It's so hard because I can't even go shopping anymore without people asking for my autograph all the time and everybody's always staring at me and my life is so hard' … You have to have a perception change when your life shifts into the gear of everybody knowing who you are …. I'm cool with that because this is what I wanted and I'm one of the lucky ones who actually got what they wanted in life."
You can find many similar interviews from when Swift was 19, 20, 21. “It's just obnoxious if I complain about anything," she told Ellen DeGeneres in 2010. "I hear people talk about, ‘Oh the intrusions on my privacy,’ it's like, there are a million jobs you could have had. I've come to an acceptance that this is my life."
Watching those interviews now is more sad than anything else. That outlook may have helped Swift relate to fans and grow her into the force she is now, but at what cost? Those interviews don't hold up with reality — for other celebrities or for Swift herself. Watch any documentary about child stardom, or even about adults who are thrust into massive fame; it never ends well.
“I became the person who everyone wanted me to be,” a 29-year-old Taylor Swift says in the 2020 documentary Miss Americana, after outlining how much she grew to live only for praise and approval. Later in the doc, she gestures to the screaming crowds outside her Tribeca apartment. “So this is my front yard. I'm highly aware of the fact that is not normal.”
As Swift and Roan have said, it's not normal that fandom works this way, that boundaries can be crossed in the name of loving or hating someone. It's all getting worse as technology evolves, and as fandoms grow ever more organized and obsessed, but it's not normal.
“I had to deconstruct an entire belief system for my own personal sanity,” Swift adds later in Miss Americana. That feels like something Roan is attempting to do in real time, not for just herself but for an ecosystem — being an artist, a musician, a person does not have to be like this. By 2024, Swift was able to sum it up concisely when announcing her surprise song “The Lucky One” — “It's about how horrible being famous is.”
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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