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There are few celebrities who have been as vocal about their distaste for fame as <\/span>Chappell Roan<\/span><\/a>. This is not inherently a bad thing in the slightest\u2014everyone, even celebrities, are entitled to privacy and human decency. Today\u2019s unparalleled age of parasociality makes that harder to come by than ever, so I have no qualms with a popstar trying to set boundaries. Honestly, <\/span>good for them<\/span>. We don\u2019t need another batch of Swifties. However, this hasn\u2019t always been the greatest thing for Roan\u2019s public perception. Each and every instance of pushing back against the machinery of fame has forced her into the limelight once more for yet another full media cycle of controversy. Does she handle these things perfectly? No, but who does? So, honestly, my reaction is typically \u201cwhatever.\u201d Like: <\/span>Kim, there\u2019s people who are dying<\/span><\/a>. We <\/span>must<\/span> have something better to talk about. Alas, Chappell Roan is under fire once more\u2014and this time, it\u2019s not just paparazzi or fans she\u2019s being accused of hating. It\u2019s children.<\/span><\/p>\n To be fair, the situation certainly doesn\u2019t make her look <\/span>great<\/span><\/i>. Yesterday, Brazilian soccer star Jorginho Frello posted a long chunk of text on his Instagram story<\/a> detailing his daughter\u2019s less-than-stellar interaction with \u201can artist she really admires, or used to admire\u201d (spoiler: the artist is Chappell Roan). In short, Frello and his family were eating breakfast at their hotel in S\u00e3o Paulo before the Lollapalooza BR festival, and his step-daughter\u2014Ada Law, Catherine Harding\u2019s kid with Jude Law\u2014was overjoyed to see her favorite artist sitting a few feet away. And, in a genuinely immense display of tact for an 11-year-old, Ada didn\u2019t even go over to say hi; she simply walked by the table to confirm for herself that the shock of red hair at the nearby table did, in fact, belong to Roan. Shortly after, however, \u201ca large security guard\u201d stalked over to Frello\u2019s family\u2019s table and \u201cbegan speaking in an extremely aggressive manner to both my wife and daughter, saying that she shouldn\u2019t allow my daughter to \u2018disrespect\u2019 or \u2018harass\u2019 other people,\u201d he wrote\u2014a particularly wild thing to say, considering all Ada did was walk \u201cpast a table and [look] to see if someone is there.\u201d The guard threatened to file a complaint with the hotel, while Ada sat there in tears, \u201cextremely shaken.\u201d The family did not end up attending Lollapalooza BR (which they were attending as Ada\u2019s birthday present); the experience was \u201cruined,\u201d according to Ada\u2019s mother, Catherine Harding.<\/span><\/p>\n After an entirely fake and very crude \u201c<\/span>response<\/span><\/a>\u201d from Roan made the rounds\u2014courtesy of a rando on Twitter being an asshole, I guess\u2014the singer herself eventually spoke up, lying in a bed and talking straight to the camera in a pair of videos posted to her own Instagram story. Essentially, she insists she was unaware of the entire encounter, and that the security guard (who was not her personal security) acted of his own volition: \u201cI didn\u2019t even see. I didn\u2019t even see a woman and a child. Like, I did not. No one came up to me. No one bothered me. [\u2026] I did not ask the security guard to go up and talk to this mother and child. I did not. They did not come up to me. They weren\u2019t doing anything. It\u2019s unfair for security to just assume someone doesn\u2019t have good intentions when they have no reason to believe because there\u2019s no action even taken.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Harding, who also goes by Cat Cavelli, cast some doubt on this in her take<\/a> on the events:\u00a0 \u201c100 percent, this security guard was not a security guard of the hotel [\u2026] I don\u2019t know if he was [Roan\u2019s] personal security guard, but he was with her. That is all I know. Did she send him to do it? Again, I don\u2019t know.\u201d So\u2026if Chappell Roan didn\u2019t hire him, and the hotel didn\u2019t hire him, then who the hell did? Is he just a random guy in a security guard costume who stands around in fancy hotels because he gets his kicks from making kids cry?<\/span><\/p>\n Roan apologized to the family for the incident as well: \u201cI do not hate people who are fans of my music. I do not hate children. Like, that is crazy. I\u2019m sorry to the mother and child that someone was assuming something, that you would do something, and if you felt uncomfortable that makes me really sad. You did not deserve that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In all, it really does feel like a little bit of a nothingburger\u2014either Chappell Roan sent a security guard to yell at the kid or she didn\u2019t, but either way, the damage was done, an apology was given, and ideally, we\u2019re all to move on with our lives. To quote Harding\u2019s own response to the situation: \u201cI didn\u2019t realize it would get this crazy.\u201d Right?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As far as the story itself goes, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s much more to say. After all, unless that rogue security guard decides to come forward with <\/span>his<\/span><\/i> side, it\u2019ll remain a solely he-said-she-said situation. Did Chappell Roan <\/span>see <\/span><\/i>the kid before siccing this security guard on her, or was that a highly unnecessary preventative measure taken by the guard himself (perhaps driven by his awareness of his client\u2019s frustration with being stopped in public)? Who knows! I mean, I doubt that a security guard saw a celebrity\u2019s child simply walk by the table without interacting with his boss whatsoever and said, \u201cYou know what? I\u2019m going to earn my raise today,\u201d before sauntering over to rip said kid a new one for committing the egregious crime of merely existing in Chappell Roan\u2019s vicinity. But I also highly doubt Roan was sitting there like Cruella de Vil, haughtily extending a lone pointer finger toward whichever elementary schooler she wanted her goons to traumatize next. In all likelihood, it\u2019s probably something in the middle\u2014some misunderstanding born from casual callousness, maybe, but not outright cruelty.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But also, on some level\u2026 So what? Celebrities are notoriously not great people most of the time, and frankly, I\u2019d rather have a popstar who yells at kids than a billionaire who rapes them\u2014and considering who our president is, it seems like most of the country is pretty fine with the latter, so I don\u2019t know why we\u2019re throwing a hissy fit about the former. Well, I <\/span>do<\/span><\/i> know why, and it rhymes with the word \u201crender\u201d\u2026 but I digress.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019d argue there\u2019s another reason too, though: parasociality. Chappell Roan\u2019s fanbase is overwhelmingly young, left-leaning, and\u2014despite her best efforts\u2014avidly parasocial. As I see it, that\u2019s probably a large reason why every Chappell-related incident blows up the way it does: her fans have not only created an image of her in their minds that can do no wrong, but have invested a significant amount of their personal well-being <\/span>into<\/span><\/i> that persona. As a result, whenever possible evidence to the contrary presents itself, they hear the <\/span>Kill Bill<\/span><\/i> siren and go ballistic. Johnny Depp and his ilk (read: famous men who abuse women) just tend to not have those kinds of fanbases. (Honestly, most intense supporters of Depp\u2019s these days probably like him <\/span>because<\/span> of the Amber Heard trial). That might be why this entire situation feels so ridiculous to me, someone who is happily <\/span>not <\/span>parasocial about Chappell Roan. I never put her on a pedestal in the first place, so there\u2019s nowhere for her to fall. I like her music and all, but she\u2019s still a celebrity\u2014still a <\/span>person<\/span><\/i>\u2014and I just don\u2019t find it particularly shocking when <\/span>any<\/span> person, let alone a <\/span>celebrity<\/span>, is found being callous.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Don\u2019t get me wrong, I hate \u201cwhat-about-ism\u201d as much as the next person. But, I mean, come on. I would eat my hat if there aren\u2019t about ten other celebrities who have made kids cry in the past 48 hours. (It\u2019s just that <\/span>this <\/span>time, the kid in question was <\/span>another<\/span> celebrity\u2019s kid, so we\u2019re hearing about it.) Like, we\u2019ve got government employees terrorizing the children of immigrants and elected officials bombing primary schools. The absolute worst case scenario here is that a celebrity made a kid cry on purpose. Is that terrible? Of course! Should it result in days of rabid, utterly dominant online discourse and a <\/span>lifetime ban<\/span><\/a> from Todo Mundo No Rio (courtesy of the mayor of Rio de Janeiro himself)?\u00a0<\/span>Man, I don\u2019t know. <\/span><\/p>\n People on Twitter are talking about<\/span> Ada Law like she was strangled by Chappell Roan\u2019s cold, dead, acrylic-nail\u2019d hands in the middle of a hotel buffet. They\u2019re <\/span>posting photos<\/span><\/a> of Ada grinning blissfully in the moment before disaster, like an <\/span>In Memoriam<\/span><\/i> post remembering a shooting victim after their death. It\u2019s all a bit much, guys. I\u2019m all for calling out bad behavior from celebs, this included, but the sheer intensity of the backlash here feels rather out-of-proportion, considering what many of Roan\u2019s male peers have received for doing far worse\u2014if having her security yell at a kid is considered proof that she regularly \u201c<\/span>terrorises young girls<\/span><\/a>,\u201d what should we call Chris Brown\u2019s myriad allegations of rape, assault, and abuse?\u00a0 And on the other side of things, Roan\u2019s insanely parasocial fanbase has been sending nonstop hate to an 11-year-oldwho didn\u2019t even do anything wrong. More than anything, I just feel bad for Ada Law for being dragged into this excruciating, humiliating mess that\u2019s being relitigated by the entire internet for days on end.<\/span><\/p>\n None of this, course, is to say that celebrities should get a free pass for being assholes simply because <\/span>all <\/span><\/i>celebrities are assholes. It\u2019s just that, on the scale of celebrity-asshole-ism, I\u2019m of the opinion that even if we were to assume the worst about Chappell Roan\u2019s actions here, this situation\u2014shitty as it would be\u2014would still rank pretty dang low. If we\u2019re all just champing at the bit for some celebrity discourse today, there are at least 50 men I\u2019d like to see undergo trial-by-Twitter (and, in many cases, trial-by-real-jury) first, so let\u2019s get on that instead. And maybe we could all just try being normal about things, for a change. Might be nice.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n