Chappell Roan has suggested she would be “more successful” if she was “OK wearing a muzzle”.
The pop sensation became a global superstar last year thanks to her hit ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ going viral a year after it was first released on her debut album ‘The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess’.
Chappell, 26, has been praised for setting boundaries with her fans after “too many non-consensual interactions” that made her feel “unsafe”, and is not afraid to speak her mind, but she believes she would be further along in her career and still on tour if she had stayed silent.
Speaking to Jack Saunders on BBC Radio 1 after being crowned the youth station’s Sound of 2025, she said: “I’ve been responding that way to disrespect my whole life – but now there are cameras on me, and I also happen to be a pop star, and those things don’t match. It’s like oil and water.”
She quipped: “I think, actually, I’d be more successful if I was OK wearing a muzzle.
“If I were to override more of my basic instincts, where my heart is going, ‘Stop, stop, stop, you’re not OK’, I would be bigger.
“I would be way bigger… And I would still be on tour right now.”
The musician – whose real name is Kayleigh Amstutz – cancelled concerts to prioritise her mental health after struggling with her rise to fame and was diagnosed with severe depression.
And Chappell says the advice her grandfather gave her about there always being “options” made her OK with turning down more concert offers.
She said: “There’s something he said that I think about in every move I make with my career. There are always options.
“So when someone says, ‘Do this concert because you’ll never get offered that much money ever again’, it’s like, who cares?
“If I don’t feel like doing this right now, there are always options. There is not a scarcity of opportunity. I think about that all the time.”