Chappell Roan explains why she refused to perform at the White House for Pride
Chappell Roan has explained why she rejected a performance at the White House during Pride (Getty Images)
Pop superstar Chappell Roan has explained why she allegedly turned down an invitation to perform at the White House for Pride.
If we want to talk about stars on the rise, few are reaching stratospheric heights faster than Chappell Roan.
In part largely to her catalogue of pitch perfect pop songs, her celebrity is also comprised of her on-the-pulse social commentary, unabashed queerness and what Gen Z would call ‘Mother Behaviour’.
All four of those facets played into a set by the Missouri-born pop star at New York’s Governors Ball festival on Sunday (June 9), in which she revealed that she turned down an invitation to play at Joe Biden’s gaff – the actual White House – for political reasons.
Originally posted by user @astoldbysno, and reposted across various X profiles, a video of Chappell Roan introducing banger “My Kink Is Karma,” included a short “response” to an invite from the White House, for her to perform on Pride.
“This is a response to the White House, who asked me to perform for Pride. We want liberty, justice, and freedom for all. When you do that, that’s when I’ll come,” Roan said while dressed as a c*nty Lady Liberty.
Elsewhere in her set, Chappel Roan explained her Lady Liberty outfit – which wouldn’t be out of place on an All Stars runway – and emphasised America’s forgotten messages after rejecting her White House performance.
“I am in drag of the biggest queen of all,” she said. “But in case you had forgotten what’s etched on my pretty little toes, ‘Give me your tired, your poor; your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,'”, quoting the sonnet written on the 1903 bronze plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty by American poet Emma Lazarus.
“That means freedom and trans rights, that means freedom and women’s rights, and it especially means freedom for all people in oppressed people in occupied territories,” she continued, before launching into “Hot To Go!”
The icon also performed a new song, hot on the heels of her most popular release to date, “Good Luck Babe!”
Called “Subway”, the mid-tempo ballad tells the story of an unrequited love affair sparked into being by a sighting on New York’s metro system.
With trademark charm and bite, one particular line goes: “Fuck this city, I’m moving to Saskatchewan.”
Speaking to PinkNews previously, Roan has always been quick to emphasise that queerness is inherently political.
“It’s very emotional,” she said at the time, on the state of play for queer people in the US.
“You can just feel the heaviness and sadness. It’s weird that everyone’s like: ‘Protect the kids, get the kids the f**k out’. I’m not worried, though. We will prevail, fight like hell. As always.”
