Chappell Roan on unsung LGBTQ country culture
Pop star Chappell Roan highlighted LGBTQ contributions to country music in an Apple Music interview posted Friday. The Grammy-winning singer released a country single, âThe Giver,â featuring lesbian innuendos, banjos and a catchy fiddle melody on Thursday. Roan, who premiered the song on âSaturday Night Liveâ in November, has said it was inspired by her Midwestern upbringing.
The âGood Luck, Babe!â singer emphasized the connections between LGBTQ and country culture, calling the genre âso incredibly campâ in the Apple interview. Though queer people are underrepresented in the genre, Roan said that LGBTQ people often fill the stadiums and supplement the bands.
âEven if itâs not the artist thatâs gay singing â girl, those backup singers, those girls on tour, the people playing banjo â there are gay people making the music,â Roan told Kelleigh Bannon, a country singer and Apple Music radio show host.Â
âThere are a lot of gay country fans, a lot of drag queen country fans,â Roan added, noting that drag queens around the world have performed lip syncs to Carrie Underwoodâs âBefore He Cheatsâ and Shania Twainâs âMan! I Feel Like A Woman!â Others, like drag superstar Trixie Mattel, have written their own country albums.
Roan, 27, said she drew inspiration for âThe Giverâ from Twain, also citing the classic country stars Miranda Lambert, Alan Jackson and George Strait. She detailed her relationship with the genre dating to her childhood in the Ozarks, touching on both nostalgia and cultural norms that she had to âunlearn.â
âI think I have a special relationship to where Iâm from because of country music, and so to kind of honor that part of myself by making a country song where itâs like, âYou know what? Yes, Iâm gay, and yes I am ultra pop. Yes, I am a drag queen ⊠who can also perform a country song,ââ Roan said.Â
Roan said âThe Giverâ is a âsong of joyâ inspired by her difficult upbringing as a queer woman in the Midwest.Â
âI can, like, hate myself for being gay at 15, and be like, âIâm a woman, Iâm supposed to just be there for my husband, and Iâm going to learn how to cook and blah blah blah.â I can do that, move to L.A., have a revelation and write a country song to kind of wrap it all up,â Roan said.
The singer promoted the single with a nod to her home state: Earlier this month, fans spotted a billboard in Springfield, Missouri, featuring Roan clad in scrubs that read, âDental dams arenât just for dentists!â Flyers and billboards of Roan dressed in vocational uniforms went up around the country, playing on âThe Giverâ lyric, âShe gets the job done.â
âIt just shows that country can exist in a queer space, and a queer space can exist in a country space,â Roan said, speaking about the campaign for her single. She noted that there are country artists who arenât out and may never come out because of the âstigmaâ and the lack of queer representation in the genre.
In the Apple Music interview, Roan also spoke about the infamous squabble she had at the 2024 VMAs with a photographer whom she later called âdisrespectfulâ and demanded an apology from. She said the incident reminded her of the âcountry boysâ she grew up with who had made her feel âinferiorâ (and whom she also pokes fun at in âThe Giver,â singing, âAinât no country boy quitter / I get the job doneâ).Â
âI think thatâs what the country song actually represents,â Roan said. âI donât hate myself for not knowing everything about the queer culture at the time. ⊠I love myself [because] I came around to the other side.âÂ
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