Paying homage to the LGBTQ+ community and early-aughts pop, Chappell Roan rose to the top of the music game. Hits like “Hot to Go!” and “Femininomenon” earned her the Best New Artist trophy at the 67th annual GRAMMY Awards. Upon accepting the trophy, Roan used her time in the spotlight to serve up an indictment of the music industry. She went on to demand a livable wage and healthcare for developing artists. While the “Pink Pony Club” received a standing ovation from her peers, not everyone appreciated what she had to say. Now, Halsey is backing up Chappell Roan’s actions following a scorching op-ed in The Hollywood Reporter.
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Music Industry Executive Calls Chappell Roan’s Speech “Wildly Misinformed”
Chappell Roan stood onstage at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena Sunday (Feb. 2) and posed an incisive question to the music industry. “Labels, we got you,” said the 26-year-old pop star (born Kayleigh Amstutz.) “Do you got us?”
chappell roan wins a fucking grammy and calls out the entire system and demands labels to provide a livable wage and health insurance. god i love her so much and how she refuses to conform to the industry. no one does it like her pic.twitter.com/mS9IH5ZBws
— isa 🥧🩸| r+j (@jyndjarin) February 3, 2025
Three days later, The Hollywood Reporter published a guest column titled “Chappell Groan: The Misguided Rhetoric of an Instant Industry Insider.”
Jeff Rabhan, who has worked for Atlantic and Elektra records, posed his own question: “What would Prince say? Or Tom Petty?”
These artists, Rabhan argued, were willing to truly jeopardize their careers “for what they believed was artistic integrity.” Roan, on the other hand, “is far too green and too uninformed” to truly enact the change she speaks of.
Rabhan posited that Roan’s GRAMMY recognition means that the “Red Wine Supernova” star is “no longer the scrappy indie artist fighting from the fringes.” Instead, he wrote, she is part of the very establishment that she claimed to rail against.
[RELATED: Grammys 2025: Biggest Snubs, Upsets, and Massive Wins]
Halsey Fires Back at “Boot Licking Behavior”
Taking to their Instagram stories, Halsey came to Chappell Roan’s aid. The “Ego” singer tagged The Hollywood Reporter directly before they went on to declare the piece “boot licking behavior.”
“I hope you’re embarrassed of the absolute personal attack that you’ve ran and disguised as critical journalism,” Halsey wrote. “Jeff Rabhan’s ranting, seething tantrum is loaded with assumptions and accusations that generalize the experience of every artist to that of the most successful. Our industry is comprised of thousands of voices, the elite at the very top of the class are not the example of a monolithic experience for all artists.”
Featured image by Anthony Harvey/Shutterstock
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