Chappell Roan challenges music executive who criticized her Grammy speech about healthcare for the needy

Chappell Roan is hitting back at a music executive who criticized her acceptance speech at the 67th Grammy Awards on Sunday, moments after winning the Best New Artist trophy.

At the awards show, Roan lobbied the music industry to offer 'a livable wage and health care' for struggling artists. 

Days later Jeff Rabhan wrote a controversial op-ed piece for The Hollywood Reporter that slammed her speech.

The Pink Pony Club singer, 26, has now taken to her Instagram Stories page and asked Rabhan - who's the former chair of the Clive Davis Institute Of Recorded Music at Tisch School Of The Arts at NYU and the co-founder and CEO of 'edutainment platform' bored-of-ed.com - to follow-up her recent cash donation to her fellow musicians.

'@jeffrabhan wanna match me $25K to donate to struggling dropped artists? My publicist is @biz3publicity. let's talk,' she wrote with obvious emotion and conviction to her words in the first post, along with a screenshot of the op-ed in the background.

She followed up by adding, 'Mr. Rabhan I love how you said "put your money where your mouth is." Genius !!! Let's link and build together and see if you can do the same.' 

In that second post she promised to 'keep everyone updated on the much awaited @jeffrabhan response!!, before noting that she 'will show receipts of the donations.'

The Willard, Missouri native also listed a number of artists who she thinks 'deserve more love and a bigger platform', which includes Hemlocke Springs, Sarah Kinsley, Devon Again and Baby Storme.

This give-and-take between the two all began when Roan (born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz) took to the stage at the recent Grammys to accept the Best New Artist gramophone and decided to use her time to advocate for musicians.

'I told myself, if I ever won a Grammy and I got to stand up here in front of the most powerful people in music, I would demand that labels in the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and healthcare, especially to developing artists,' she said at the time.  

'Because I got signed so young, I got signed as a minor, and when I got dropped, I had zero job experience under my belt and like most people, I had a difficult time finding a job in a pandemic and could not afford health insurance.'

Having been open and honest about her struggles with mental health in the past, the issue has an even added urgency after enduring the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving her feeling 'betrayed by the system.' 

'If my label would have prioritized artists' health, I could have been provided care by a company I was giving everything to,' the Kink Is My Karma star said from the podium, before sharing, 'So record labels need to treat their artists as valuable employees with a livable wage and health insurance and protection.'

She went on to conclude her Grammy speech: 'Labels, we got you, but do you got us?'

In a guest column for THR, three days after Roan's challenge to the music industry, Rabhan's op-ed offered up 'respect and true appreciation for her creativity and gumption' but added that she's 'far too green and uninformed to be the agent of change she aspires to be today.'

The guest writer dropped the names of late legends Prince and Tom Petty, describing them as worthy leaders of change who 'fought for their souls and for the rights to their music, putting their careers in jeopardy for what they believed was artistic integrity — the hallmark of greatness.'

Rabhan then pointed to Roan's short time in the limelight as a musical artist.

'When you’ve been around long enough, you know that real substantive change doesn’t come from speeches, it comes from where the rubber meets the road — life and limb, harm's way, risking it all with action,' the artist manager declared.

Roan made her debut with the EP School Nights (2017), which featured the single Pink Pony Club.

She would ultimately have her big breakthrough with her first studio album, The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess (2023), which amassed critical acclaim.

After garnering a cult following the record became a sleeper hit, leading to six Grammy nominations, for which she took home that Best New Artist award.