Rising star Chappell Roan tearfully told her concert audience on Wednesday night that she is having a “really hard time” keeping up with the sudden speed of her fame.
In the last few weeks, the Missouri-born singer-songwriter has surged in popularity, thanks largely in part to her catchy viral hit, “Good Luck Babe!,” and her headline-making festival appearances. She’s also logged the highest streaming days of her career for her debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” which only recently hit No. 1 on the iTunes charts despite it being released in September of last year.
Adding fuel to her fire, Roan’s appearance in Raleigh on Wednesday night came just as Tennessee’s Bonnaroo festival announced they were moving her set from a small tent to the main stage in anticipation of her big turnout.
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During the show, Chappell unpacked some of the layered emotions and complexities of her dreams coming true: “I’m trying to figure out how to say this,” she began, before starting to choke up. “I just want to be honest with the crowd, and I just feel a little off today because I think that my career’s just kind of gone really fast and it’s really hard to keep up. And so, I’m just being honest that I’m just having a hard time today.” She apologized to the crowd, adding that she didn’t want to give them a lesser show but “there’s a lot on my mind.”
“Thank you for understanding,” she continued. “This is all I’ve ever wanted, it’s just heavy sometimes, so thank you.”
Roan has always been open about her mental health struggles. In May of 2022, she penned a short post on Instagram about her Bipolar II disorder, which can often trigger a pattern of depressive episodes, per the National Institute of Mental Health. The following year, she wrote another post about feeling very “fortunate and grateful to have my dream job,” though her mental health sometimes makes it difficult to “regulate” her emotions.
“I’m working through it the best I can and I’m grateful I have the means to afford therapy and occasional time off,” she said at the time. “Everything is very exciting right now and I’m realizing that success actually makes me quite uncomfortable and self conscious and I’m not sure why yet. If ur an artist (indie or not) this career is fucking hard, and I feel you.”