Recommendations of the Editorial team
Zara Larsson’s affection for Chappell Roan grows and grows. Opposite “The GuardianShe even described it with a simple mathematical formula: “The more people hate her, the more I love her,” she said. Still, she added, “I don’t like the way she’s being treated at all.”
Since her rise to global stardom a few years ago, Roan has found herself in the crossfire of the public several times. When she published a statement in 2024 in which she drew a clear dividing line between her “work” and her “private life,” some fans felt offended. Roan stood her ground: “What I don’t accept is creepy people, touching and persecution,” she explained.
According to Larsson, the contempt that some have for Roan has a simple cause: sexism. “When a woman sets boundaries, people go crazy,” she said. “Men can commit violent crimes and be applauded for it – but when a woman says, ‘Stop chasing me,’ is that suddenly controversial? That just means you just hate women.”
The Jorginho incident
Most recently, Roan came into the public eye when Brazilian soccer player Jorginho claimed that the singer had ordered a security guard to “extremely aggressively” reprimand his wife and 11-year-old stepdaughter – because the girl had the audacity to walk past Roan and smile at them. The security guard told the mother not to let her daughter “disrespect” or “harass” other people. The whole thing turned out to be a huge misunderstanding.
Roan published a video in which she made it clear that she had not noticed the mother and daughter at all: “No one came towards me, no one bothered me.” And because it seemed necessary to say it at all, Roan also said, “I don’t hate people who like my music. I don’t hate children. … If you felt uncomfortable, I’m really sorry. You don’t deserve that.”
Then the security guard Pascal Duvier spoke up – whom Roan had not even employed. “I take full responsibility for what happened on March 21,” he said. “I was at the hotel on behalf of another individual and was not part of Chappell Roan’s personal security team. My actions were not on behalf of Chappell Roan, their personal security team, their management or anyone else.” So in the end it was all for nothing – and the real victims of the whole thing were Roan and the stepdaughter.
Larsson and the mega-fame
Larsson herself told The Guardian that she was ready for the big time. “I thrive on attention in any form,” said the singer, who released her new album “Midnight Sun” last year and spends her free time updating her Wikipedia photo. “When I was younger, I thought, ‘Oh, I can’t wait for the paparazzi to show up at my house.'”
