On September 28, the summer of Chappell Roan began its inevitable turn to fall. In a “Weekend Update” segment on Saturday Night Live , Bowen Yang appeared as Moo Deng in a bit comparing the viral hippo’s plight to Roan’s own complaints about inappropriate fan behavior , cementing it as A Definite Thing. (In response to fan outcry about “a gay cishet man [sic] making fun of a queer woman,” Yang declared that the sketch was made with love.
) The segment capped off a turbulent week for Roan, in which the singer’s comments about the presidential election set off yet another round of social-media backlash, prompting her to pull out of two planned performances at the All Things Go Festival. “Things have gotten overwhelming over the past few weeks and I am really feeling it,” she wrote on Instagram. This mishegoss is the latest in an exhausting, months-long conversation involving Roan, fame, and stan culture.
In August, she issued a series of social-media statements calling out “predatory” fans and disagreeing “with the notion that I owe a mutual exchange of energy, time, or attention to people I do not know, do not trust, or who creep me out, just because they’re expressing admiration.” A week later, she canceled two European tour dates over scheduling conflicts, seemingly with the MTV VMAs, where she once again made headlines for getting in a shouting match with a photographer on the red carpet. All of this drama centers on one incontrovertible point: No.