Chappell Roan Is Nominated For 6 Grammys—Get to Know the Feminonmenon

While it seems like she popped out of nowhere, Chappell Roan has been making music since high school, with the Missouri-bred teen uploading covers and original songs to YouTube. Discovered by Atlantic Records, she was signed during her senior year, an accomplishment that felt a bit underwhelming in the halls of Willard High.

“They literally said it over the announcements,” she revealed in an interview with Amazon Music in November 2023. “They were like, congratulations Kayleigh Amstutz for signing to Atlantic Records, also for lunch…it’s pizza.”

Your favorite artist’s favorite artist turned to her family when coming up with her alter ego.

The singer was born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz on February 19, 1998, in Willard, Missouri. But as she “never felt super connected” with her birth name, previously sharing that she pulled inspiration from her grandfather’s favorite music.

“My grandfather's name was Dennis K. Chappell, so I took Chappell in his honor,” she told Cherwell in August 2022. “Before he passed away in 2016 due to brain cancer, I told him that I was going to be Chappell for him. Roan came from his favorite song, which was called the “Strawberry Roan,” an old Western song about a pinkish red horse. It’s a very sentimental name.”

Growing up, Chappell attended church multiple times a week, a ritual that made her feel trapped.

“I just wanted to feel like a good person, but I had this part of me that wanted to escape so bad,” she told Variety in September 2023. “I snuck out a lot, but I still went to church three times a week, you know what I mean? So it was just this dichotomy of trying to be a good girl, but also wanting to freaking light things on fire.”

As far as her relationship with religion now, the “Kaleidoscope” singer says she’s distanced from the church, but remains grateful for the perspective it gave her. 

“I don’t identify with the Christian Church anymore right now, but I’m really glad that I was part of that community because I understand them,” she told Vanity Fair in September 2023. “I understand that perspective. I know where they’re coming from. I have a different understanding when it comes to really confusing things that most people are like, ‘what the f--k?’”

This midwestern princess was almost a Mid-WED-stern princess.

“I’ve almost been married twice,” she revealed in a July 2023 TikTok, “and that’s all I’m gonna say about that.”

While the details of her prior engagements are limited, the “Hot to Go” singer has never been one to shy away from throwing shade at her past flings. Before singing her hit song “My Kink is Karma” at the 2024 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, she sent a fiery message to one of her former flames.

“I dedicate this song to my ex,” she said. “How does it feel to become everything you hated, and I became everything I wanted.” 

And at a later performance she spoke directly to her ex's new fiancé.

“I dedicate this song to my ex, who was bragging that they dated me at the bar in my hometown,” she noted. “This is a message for your fiancé: You should break up.”

Chappell’s debut was originally going to be titled Femininomenon after her 2022 single of the same name. However, Chappell decided to change the name after realizing fans would have a difficult time pronouncing it. She ultimately landed on the title The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess because she wanted to include a mention of her Midwest roots. 

“I knew I just needed to put the Midwest in there just because it’s so important to my project,” she explained to Variety. “It influences my music, my fashion, my lyrics, the energy around it. It’s important for me to capture the Midwestern aspect. I don’t want to lose that part of me. I thought I really did when I was younger, but now I don’t anymore.”

The new title also better captured the album's story of Chappell leaving her small town in Missouri to pursue music in Los Angeles.

After being signed to Atlantic Records for five years, Chappell was dropped by the label in 2020.

The issue, she said, is they felt her single “Pink Pony Club,” which she worked on with producer Dan Nigro, wouldn’t perform well during the pandemic or align with the “gothic” sound of her music at the time.

“My relationship ended with my label like a lot of artists ended their relationship in 2020,” she explained during an appearance on Q with Tom Power. “You just get dropped if you’re not making money in 2020. The music industry crashed. Touring is how artists make their money, and it was 2020. I wasn’t touring. ‘Pink Pony’ came out in April of 2020, the worst time for a club song to come out. To be honest the label didn’t even want to put it out.”

After being dropped by Atlantic, Chappell moved back home to Missouri to live with her parents and began working at a drive-through in her hometown. During this time Chappell says she seriously questioned her future in the industry.

As she recalled, “I was just kind of like, ‘I wonder if this is really for me.’”

However, she decided not to give up on her musical dreams and continued to develop her sound independently.

“As time has gone on, I realized that no matter how hard that label experience was for five years, it was the biggest blessing ever,” she told the Rolling Stone in 2022. “And being independent has taught me I can do it myself.”

Chappell isn’t Dan’s only pop princess.

Dan first started working with Olivia Rodrigo in 2020 after stumbling upon a video of her singing her—at the time unreleased—song “Happier” on Instagram. Shortly after that they collaborated on the track “Driver’s license” which shot Olivia into the mainstream.

While Dan was having success with Olivia, Chappell was home in Missouri working on her music independently. When Chappell returned to L.A. and began working with Dan again, she was introduced to Olivia and the pair have been inseparable since.

Chappell opened for Olivia’s Sour Tour in San Francisco in May of 2022, and again for the first part of her GUTS world tour in 2024.

“I was like, ‘Oh my god’…I’ve only played my first headline show last May, and to go from, like, 200 people to 20,000 in less than two years is very intense and fast,” she said during a November 2023 appearance on Triple J radio. “But I’m so excited because I opened for her one time in San Francisco last May as well, and it was 9,000 [people]. It was a lot less, but the energy was so electric because a lot of her fans are younger than my fans.

Not only has Chappell opened for the “Driver’s License” singer twice, but she has also provided backing vocals for many of her songs.

In an interview with Capital Buzz breaking down her debut album, she revealed that she recorded backing vocals for “Obsessed,” “Lacy,” “Bad Idea, Right?,” and the song Olivia recorded for the 2023 film The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, “Can’t Catch Me Now.”

“My stylist Genesis Webb, and I, we pull from drag, we pull from horror movies, we pull from burlesque, we pull from theater,” she explained of her over-the-top looks during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “I love looking pretty and scary, or like pretty and tacky, or just not pretty. I love that too.”

Whether she's donning a translucent latex skirt, a prosthetic pig nose, or a pair of bedazzled butterfly wings, this super ultra-modern girl will always know how to turn a look.

The singer recalled the moment she realized Chappell Roan wasn’t just her stage name, but also her drag persona. 

“I had a drag queen open for me in London named Crayola,” she shared on Q with Tom Power. “She was like, ‘Oh you are a drag queen, you’re not just getting makeup on, you’re a drag queen,’ and I was like, ‘Oh my god,’ like that was very altering. I really have taken that on as an identity, and it’s been very freeing to be like ‘Oh Chappell Roan is my drag project,’ and I think that’s also helped personally to separate it as a job.”

During the same appearance on The Tonight Show, Chappell shouted out Ru Paul’s Drag Race season 15 winner Sasha Colby as the inspiration behind her line “I’m your favorite artist’s favorite artist.”

“That was a reference to Sasha Colby,” she said. “She says, ‘I’m your favorite drag queen’s favorite drag queen.’ It just hit me through the heart and so I was like, ‘I hope one day Sasha Colby one day watches me,’ and that’s why I said it.”

A month later, the drag superstar joined Chappell on stage during her performance at the 2024 Capitol Hill Block Party.

Diagnosed with Bipolar II disorder in 2022, Chappell shared how her rise to fame inspired her to seek help. 

“I felt so miserable for my whole childhood,” she told Rolling Stone in September 2024. “I was just a freak and really shy and self-conscious and modest. All my parents could do was try their best.”

Eventually, she continued, “I realized I can’t live like this. I can’t live being so depressed or feel so lost that I want to kill myself. I just got my s--t together.”

Since her diagnosis, Chappell has been very transparent with fans about her struggles with mental health and is looking to break stigmas surrounding the topic.

“It affects me daily and is a pretty big part of my music,” she wrote on Instagram. “I’m in a really healthy spot, just wanted to share and I think it’s important to talk about mental health.”

This Midwestern princess won’t be dating another singer anytime in the future. 

The “School Nights” singer blatantly admitted to Rolling Stone, “I don’t want to date another artist because they’re f----ing nuts.”

Instead, she revealed, she’s exploring one relationship casually. “I met this girl that I really like, but [I] can’t commit because I feel like no one understands me,” she said. “She’s so awesome and so secure in herself and [has told me] ‘No pressure, we can just be friends if you want.”

Although she’s dated men in the past, Chappell officially came out as a lesbian during a show in Ohio in early 2024.

“I just wasn’t supposed to be sleeping with men,” she explained to Rolling Stone.“And now I’m a little repulsed at the thought of even kissing a guy because no one’s going to be as good as girls.”

Still, she acknowledged that she sometimes feels uncomfortable with her sexuality. “I don’t get why this is such an issue for me,” she said. “It shouldn’t be, but something’s just going on and I need to accept that.”

Despite her lingering discomfort, Chappell says she embraces her queer identity, but doesn’t feel the need to “talk about it every second of every day.”

During her performance at the 2024 Governor’s Ball in June, Chappell told the audience that she turned down an offer from President Joe Biden to perform at the White House in honor of Pride Month. 

“We want liberty, justice, and freedom for all,” she explained of her decision. “When you do that, that’s when I’ll come.”

During the performance, she also demanded equal rights for marginalized communities. 

“I am in drag of the biggest queen of all,” she emphasized while dressed in a Statue of Liberty-themed ‘fit. “But In case you have forgotten what’s etched into my pretty little toes: ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free. That means freedom in trans rights. That means freedom in women's rights. And it especially means freedom for all oppressed people in occupied territories.”

Before her Joan of Arc-inspired performance at the 2024 VMAs, she snapped at a photographer on the red carpet after he was heard saying, “Shut the f--k up.” In response Chappell pointed and fired back, shouting “YOU shut the f--k up. Don’t! Not me, b---h.”

Her reasoning for standing up for herself is quite simple.

“I’m very turned off by the celebrity of it all,” she said in a statement to Newsweek. “Some girls have been in this so long that they’re used to that, but I’m not that girl. I’m not gonna be a sweetie pie to a man who’s telling me to shut the f--k up.”

Chappell also proved she is never one to forget a face, as she confronted another photographer during the premiere of Netflix’s concert film Olivia Rodrigo: GUTS World Tour for a previous negative interaction.

“You were so disrespectful to me at the Grammys,” she told a photographer. “You yelled at me at the Grammy party. Yes, I remember. You were so rude to me. And I deserve an apology for that. You need to apologize to me.”