Paramore’s Hayley Williams Praises ‘Brave’ Chappell Roan for Calling Out Predatory Fans
Chappell Roan’s statement about predatory fan behavior is garnering major support from other big names in the music industry, including Paramore’s Hayley Williams.
Williams, 35, recently took to her Instagram Story to praise Roan, 26, for speaking out about setting boundaries with her fans.
“Read the whole thing and the caption too,” Williams wrote while reposting Roan’s Friday, August 23, statement. “This happens to every woman I know from this business, myself included. Social media has made this worse. I’m really thankful Chappell is willing to address it in a real way, in real time. It’s brave and unfortunately necessary.”
Roan has repeatedly spoken out about fan behavior in recent weeks, first in two TikTok videos and later in a lengthy statement shared via Instagram.
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??“If you saw a random woman on the street, would you yell at her from the car window? Would you harass her in public?” Roan said in the first of two TikTok videos posted on August 19. “Would you go up to a random lady and say, ‘Can I get a photo with you?’ and she’s like, ‘No, what the f–k,’ and then you get mad at this random lady?”
In the second video, she called out fans’ “creepy behavior,” adding, “I don’t care that abuse and harassment, stalking, whatever, is a normal thing to do to people who are famous or a little famous.”
Roan, who has rocketed to superstardom in recent months, further detailed the invasion of her privacy on Friday.
“For the past 10 years, I’ve been going non-stop to build my project and it’s come to the point that I need to draw lines and set boundaries,” she wrote. “I want to be an artist for a very long time. I’ve been in too many nonconsensual physical and social interactions and I just need to lay it out and remind you, women don’t owe you s–t.”
She went on to note that she chose to pursue a career in music because she loves art, but that doesn’t give fans the right to all of her time.
“I do not accept harassment of any kind because I chose this path, nor do I deserve it,” Roan wrote. “While I’m on stage, when I’m performing, when I’m in drag, when I’m at a work event, when I’m doing press … I am at work. Any other circumstances, I am not in work mode. I am clocked out.”
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She continued: “I am specifically talking about predatory behavior (disguised as ‘superfan’ behavior) that has become normalized because of the way women are well-known have been treated in the past. Please do not assume you know a lot about someone’s life, personality and boundaries because you are familiar with them or their work online.”
In her caption, Roan noted that she’d turned off comments because she wasn’t “looking for anyone’s response” to her message.
“This isn’t a group conversation,” she explained. “I’m not afraid of the consequences for demanding respect. Just to let you know, every woman is feeling or has felt similar to what I’m experiencing. This isn’t a new situation. If you see me as a bitch or ungrateful or my entire statement upsets you, baby that’s you … you gotta look inward and ask yourself ‘wait why am I so upset by this? Why is a girl expressing her fears and boundaries so infuriating?’ That is all.”
