With the 2024 presidential election coming up fast, Vice President Kamala Harris has received plenty of celebrity endorsements from stars such as Taylor Swift and Billie Ellish. However, there’s one major artist who isn’t attaching her name to any candidate quite so easily: Chappell Roan. In case you missed it, the Midwest Princess shared some comments about the election — including her decision not to endorse Harris, or any candidate for that matter — and she’s catching some heat for what she’s said.
“I have so many issues with our government in every way,” the pop artist told The Guardian during a Sept. 20 interview. “There are so many things that I would want to change. So I don’t feel pressured to endorse someone. There’s problems on both sides.” In the interview, Roan also encouraged fans to use their vote and said the biggest change she wants to see this election year is trans rights.
After the interview came out, however, the backlash was quick to follow, with some critics on social media saying her “non-endorsement” was harmful. “You can’t borrow from drag aesthetics and embrace your sexuality and then pretend the party that would criminalize our happiness is the same as the one who protects it,” a X user wrote. Another X user equated Roan’s non-endorsement to calling the candidates equal to each other, claiming her comments basically boiled down to “both sides are the same.”
In the midst of all this criticism, Chappell Roan posted on TikTok on Sept. 24 to clear up her statement. “I have encouraged people to use critical thinking skills to learn about what they’re voting for, learn about who they’re voting for, and ask questions, and it’s being completely taken out of context, per usual,” Roan said. She continued on to clarify that she is not voting for Trump (despite what some critics may have implied) and encouraged her fans to question authority. “It’s important for me to question authority, and question world leaders, and question myself,” she said. “It’s important to question, because that’s how I think we move forward.”
Unfortunately for Roan, that TikTok might have only added more fuel to the fire. In response, an X user said, “her stance was very clear from the beginning a lot of people are just very stupid.”
“Chappell Roan is never gonna understand why her statements are problematic,” an X user posted. “She’s an extremely privileged white woman who won’t be affected by the outcome of the election, so naturally she’s going to play the ‘both sides are bad’ card.”
Roan again attempted to clarify her stances on Sept. 25, when she came out with another TikTok addressing the backlash. “Endorsing and voting are completely different,” Roan said. “I don’t agree with a lot of what is going on with, like, policies.”
Notably, she also established that she is, indeed, voting for Harris in the upcoming election. “Yeah, I’m voting for f*cking Kamala,” she said in her video. However, she said she’s not officially endorsing her because she doesn’t feel comfortable taking a public stance on someone she doesn’t “fully fully trust.”
Although Roan has tried to clear up her statement two times, there are still plenty of people annoyed. However, there are also plenty of people who think her stance is fair. One user on X wrote, “The way Chappell Roan is just saying we need to hold politicians accountable to higher standards and demand more from them instead of just accepting their actions and [people] are losing it like that’s not a completely common leftist take.” Another X user wrote, “Chappell Roan is completely correct in what she’s saying and I can’t believe you guys are giving her grief for standing by her principles.”
Additionally, fans have been calling out Roan for mispronouncing Harris’s first name (which is pronounced “kaa-muh-luh”) in her statements. An X user wrote, “I will say real quick re: Chappell Roan, she’s not helping her case by mispronouncing Kamala’s name.” Another X user agreed, writing, “my only take on Chappell Roan is she should learn how to say Kamala correctly.”
The discourse only continues on TikTok, where users are upset and “disappointed” at Roan for mispronouncing Harris’s name.
One user, @paupaupau1235, said that if Roan wanted her (and other folks) to take her statement seriously, then Roan should “pronounce Kamala’s name correctly.” She continued, “And if you did all that research, you should know.”
Will Roan ever please everyone? Personally, I don’t think so. But that’s not really her style anyway.