Everyone has an icon list. Whether they realize it or not, there’s a little list in every person’s head of people who do something so iconic that it’s just unforgettable. This can include people who slay in almost every aspect of their lives or, for me, just say something so perfectly out of pocket. My list consists of:
· Jane Fonda (specifically when she got arrested for fighting climate change),
· Mike Wazowski (for his stand-up show at Disney World),
· My high school history teacher Dr. Crihfield when she said, “I understand that studying is as appealing as eating wet paper towels,”
· My choir friend because she slays every single day.
And now, that list has expanded to the new Regina George, Reneé Rapp. Her iconic career started when she won the 2018 Jimmy Awards for Best Performance by an Actress. In the following year, she made her Broadway debut. At 19! To make it even better, her Broadway debut was in no other performance than Mean Girls… as Regina George. I’m 20 and have come nowhere close to reaching the level of slay she did at this point.
Rapp went on to be a part of Mindy Kaling’s Sex Lives of College Girls the following year, where she later chose to leave because of personal reasons (we love a self-care queen). Most recently, she reprised her role as Regina George in the movie musical Mean Girls. She’s been booked and busy, and this doesn’t even include her singing career!
Although these were all great moments in her career, they’re not what make her an icon. Her press tour for Mean Girls has been quite the adventure. She doesn’t seem to care about the rules that other celebrities seem to care so much about. It’s so refreshing to see a celebrity speak their mind and not worry about being liked. This carefree attitude is even one of the reasons why people like her so much. She has her fanbase (me included), and I have faith that the people who care about a true mind will continue to follow her.
The best moment on this press tour is when she calls out a tour bus driver for being “misogynistic” and just straight up says, “I hope your business burns.” Not only did she make it clear she didn’t like him, but she also made it very easy for the internet to find this man.
After comments on TikTok and Instagram claimed that she hasn’t had media training, Rapp has embraced this new characterization. She even made a jab at these claims with an Instagram post on Jan. 17 with the caption, “her lack of media training is outrageous.”
In each interview, she seems to say something completely out of pocket, which most of the time is something we all might be thinking of but never say aloud. In an Andy Cohen interview, she flat-out admits that she is an ageist without really any explanation. Which, say it with me, is iconic behavior!
Rapp’s iconic media behavior started before the Mean Girls press tour. When promoting one of her concerts in Boston, she paid for a billboard sign that said “I Hate Boston” (alluding to one of her songs). According to her Late Night with Seth Meyers interview, she didn’t get a lot of love from the people of Boston that night. Even in other interviews, she just seems to say the first thing on her mind such as (my favorite quote from her) saying “ADHD” when YouTuber Terrel told her, “The way your mind works is fascinating.”
Now, let’s get one thing straight. Rapp is not a bad person. She isn’t trying to hurt anyone (at least people who don’t deserve it). She says in one Mean Girls interview that she’d “rather piss people off than please them” since she used to put a lot of energy into pleasing people. I think that even if you give this legend all the media training in the world, she would throw it all out and give people the truth. She’s not trying to be a “mean girl,” but she is done playing nice.
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