Chappell Roan just dropped her first new single in months, “The Giver,” a country-tinged tune that in part pays homage to her Missouri roots. In a new interview, she opened up about the song and how it ties to her formative years as a young country girl being treated “the best and worst” by “country boys.”
During an Apple Music Country interview, podcast host Kelleigh Bannen asked Roan why she chose to go more country with her new music, and the singer cited songs such as Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochee” and Big & Rich’s “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)” as “campy” and “fun” inspirations for the energy she was seeking.
“I think I have a special relationship to where I’m from because of country music,” Roan explained. “So, to kind of honor that part of myself (…) it’s like, ‘You know what? Yes, I am gay and yes, I am ultra pop. Yes, I am a drag queen. You can also perform a country song.’”
Reflecting on growing up a “Midwest Princess,” Roan offered some reflections that help better understand who she is as a woman and artist. “I’m about to say something so controversial,” she cautioned, “but do you know who has treated me the best and the worst? Country boys.”
Chappell Roan Says These Classmates Treated Her Both ‘The Best and Worst’
“They treated me the nicest and they’ve also treated me the worst because—this is in high school—and that’s what I grew up around,” she continued. “Those are the boys I grew up around and that’s how I learned to stand up for myself, because you’re not going to look at me and be like, ‘Shh, shh, shh.’”
Being around tough country boys, Roan says, taught her “that I am never going to have this done to me ever again,” and was “never going to have someone put their hand up and say, ‘Stop talking.’”
“I learned from a lot of the boys that I grew up around who were influenced by their fathers,” she added, “and how these roles as, like, ‘I’m a man, so you speak after me.’ I began my confidence in feeling kind of inferior to a lot of the boys around me growing up.”
It was at this point, she very specifically tied what she was saying into an infamous incident from the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards. “And so whenever I pointed out at that photographer on the red carpet at the VMAs, I heard boys at my freaking high school telling girls to shut the… up,” she said, referring to the red carpet incident wherein a photographer was being rude to her so she responded by saying:
“Don’t! Not me, bitch!” The pair also told one another to “shut the fuck up.”
Roan made it clear that she knows this type of misogyny is “not exclusive to any culture,” adding, “It’s universal. But I didn’t hear just slurs around gay people. I’ve heard a lot of women-hating comments growing up and a lot of women-uplifting comments, but it’s different where we grew up.”
“And I don’t care that I was raised to be ladylike. I don’t care. I don’t care about being trashy. I don’t care about looking sexy. These are all things I had to unlearn,” she continued. “I had to unlearn, like, ‘Actually you are not going to make me feel inferior just because I’m a young girl.’ I had to pull myself up, and that is straight up why I’m here.”
Roan then went on to ponder how “The Giver” will be received by music audiences and if they’ll “revolt” against it and her for “making a very clearly lesbian song, where I poke fun at country boys.” Clarifying her point, she added, “I’ve dated a few. I dated a few. I love a country boy. I love them. I love a man who can shovel horse manure. I love that. I love a man who will sit in grass.”
“I’ve dated a farm boy,” Roan continued. “I’ve dated someone who worked on a dairy farm. But I’ve also dated someone who will literally not sit on grass, and not touch a bug. I appreciate the country way. But also, you will find me making fun of them all… Why do we keep having songs about women not being satisfied?”
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