Shortly after going viral for responding to paparazzi hounding her by filming them right back and setting firm boundaries, queer pop star Chappell Roan is making headlines once again for her part in a new controversy.
An alleged interaction between the “Pink Pony Club” singer’s security team and a young fan has sparked controversy and drawn fierce criticism online.
The saga has taken over social media with Roan, the 11-year-old child’s famous parents, and even a politician jumping into the fray to give their side of the dramatic story.
But what happened, and what does everyone have to say about the alleged incident?
How did the controversy start?
Everything started going down on March 21 when Brazilian-born professional soccer player Jorginho Frello made an Instagram Story post detailing an alleged experience his daughter had with Roan’s security guard.
While Roan was headlining Lollapalooza Brazil in São Paulo, Frello claims her security team mistreated his 11-year-old stepdaughter, Ada Law — who also happens to be Jude Law’s biological daughter — after she walked past Roan’s table at a São Paulo hotel trying to get a glimpse of the “Red Wine Supernova” singer.
“She simply walked past the singer’s table, looked to confirm it was her, smiled, and went back to sit with her mum. She didn’t say anything, didn’t ask for anything,” Jorginho wrote in the post.
According to Frello, a member of Roan’s security team spoke “extremely aggressively” to his wife and daughter before scolding the mother for allowing their daughter to “disrespect” or “harass other people.”
He also alleged that the security guard threatened to “file a complaint against them with the hotel,” all the while his daughter was “sitting there in tears.”
Has Chappell Roan responded?
After Frello’s accounting of events went viral, the pop star responded with a video posted to her Instagram Stories on Sunday, where she apologized, but also explained that her personal security was not involved in the alleged incident and that she was unaware a child even wanted her attention.
“I didn’t even see a woman and a child,” Roan said. “No one came up to me. No one bothered me. I was just sitting at breakfast in my hotel.”
Roan also condemned the security guard for assuming that the mother and child were doing anything wrong.
“I did not ask the security guard to go up and talk to this mother and child,” she said. “They did not come up to me. They weren’t doing anything. It’s unfair for security to just assume someone doesn’t have good intentions, when they have no reason to believe, because there’s no action even taken.”
Roan, who has faced criticism in the past for the way she handles fans and paparazzi, said that she doesn’t dislike children or her fans.
“I do not hate people who are fans of my music, she said. “I do not hate children. That is crazy. I’m 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.”
What has the mother said?
Roan and Frello weren’t the only ones to share their sides of the story. Catherine Harding, the little girl’s mother and a British singer who had a brief relationship with Jude Law in 2014, also released a statement on social media explaining the situation.
In a six-minute-long video, Harding admitted she couldn’t verify whether the security guard who approached them was hired by Roan, didn’t know whether Roan had sent him to confront her and her daughter, but insisted that she was “100 percent” sure he didn’t work for the hotel.
“Did she send him to do it? Again, I don’t know,” she said. “Look, I would like to hope not, but at the same time, I think that you have a responsibility when you are a celebrity to make sure, I guess, that the people who work for you and act on your behalf are acting on your behalf.”
Has the mayor of Rio de Janeiro made a statement?
If all of that back and forth wasn’t enough, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Cavaliere, chimed in on Saturday.
“I mean that as long as I’m in charge of our city — this young lady @ChappellRoan will never perform at Todo Mundo no Rio! I doubt that Shakira would do that!” he said.
