Let’s run it back to last weekend at the 2025 Grammy Awards. In the words of Grammy winner and presenter Victoria Monét, “That’s a tough category right there,” and Chappell Roan won it: Best New Artist. After ten years in the music industry, Roan’s skyrocket to stardom has been a dream to watch for queer fans everywhere. She performed her 2020 single, “Pink Pony Club,” amongst a backdrop of clowns, cowboys, and a giant pink pony. The anthem to the city of Los Angeles was especially poignant as the 2025 Grammys held the purpose of raising funds following the devastating wildfires in LA. With six nominations, including Album of the Year for “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” and Song of the Year for “Good Luck, Babe!”, Best New Artist is her first Grammy win—and it is so deserved.
Taking the stage for her speech, Roan reads out from a journal to thank her fellow nominees, producer Dan Nigro, Island Records, her fans, friends, family and grandfather. Her tall princess hat falls off, and she says, “It’s going to be okay.” She demands the music industry provide livable wages and healthcare to developing artists. Citing the insecurity and fear she felt after being dropped by her first label (Atlantic Records), Roan calls out the fact that artists cannot keep giving their all to companies that do not give them anything in return. (As someone who listened to the School Nights EP when it was released in 2017, I have no idea why anybody ever doubted that she would be successful.) And Roan is right—it’s hard for anyone to be creatively inspired when they constantly have to worry about how they’re going to pay the rent or keep the lights on. She ends her speech with a powerful callout to the industry: “Labels, we got you. But do you got us?”
Three days later, on February 5, The Hollywood Reporter published an opinion piece from Jeff Rabhan titled “Chappell Groan: The Misguided Rhetoric of an Instant Industry Insider.” Rabhan was a senior director at Atlantic Records, held multiple other executive positions in the music industry, and was a chairman at NYU Tisch School Of The Arts.
Rabhan accused Roan of needing to talk less and do more, which is easy for someone in an executive position to say. Instead of taking accountability as an industry executive, Rabhan pushed the idea that artists themselves should be creating foundations and mentorship programs themselves. Lucky for him, Chappell Roan was absolutely ready to “put her money where her mouth is” and challenged him in an Instagram Story to match her $25K donation to dropped struggling artists. Halsey, who was dropped by Capitol Records in 2023, defended Roan against the labeling as an “instant industry insider.” Rabhan retaliated on X (formerly Twitter), positioning himself as a struggling educator. Reminder: he taught at NYU Tisch, a prestigious and elite institution. He stated in his open letter, “If you and Halsey had directed your fanbase to donate $1 to your Living Artist Fund for every hate-filled slur sent to me— you would have enough funding in ONE DAY to cover health care for every single artist and writer in need for almost 2 years.” Once again, he’s putting the pressure of funding on artists and their fans instead of the labels who make billions of dollars off of their backs. Crowdfunding being seen as the solution to systemic problems is the issue here, and Rabhan doesn’t seem to understand that.
On her Instagram Stories, Roan took time to shout out small artists hemlocke springs, Sarah Kinsley, Devon Again, and Baby Storme. Fellow artists Noah Kahan and Charli XCX also decided to match Roan’s $25K donation to artists’ access to healthcare, posing with a peace sign next to their mouths as a representation of putting their “money where their mouth is.” Despite Jeff Rabhan choosing not to join these efforts, it is apparent that he got what he wanted: artists donating their hard-earned money, and the labels get to stay as they are. Roan shared that her donation went to the charity Backline.care and assured her fans that they didn’t need to be the ones donating—industry powers should be the ones stepping up and joining her in this venture. As of February 11, 2025, Sabrina Carpenter, Sumerian Records, Live Nation, Hinterlands Music Festival, Wasserman Foundation, Guy Oseary, and AEG Global Touring have donated.
Tweet: screenshots of Noah Kahan and Charli XCX’s commitments via Instagram Stories, posted by @musicwins1 https://twitter.com/musicwins1/status/1888506247705407937
This is not all Roan is doing to change the industry. She has consistently criticized celebrity culture, openly struggling with the speedy trajectory she took into the spotlight. At the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards, she faced down a paparazzi who told her to “Shut up,” telling him he had no right to speak to her like that. She dedicated her VMAs Best New Artist win to queer and trans people and discussed the importance of trans joy on the Grammys red carpet. In the current political climate, where the White House is removing mentions of transgender people on official websites, Roan’s unwavering support of the trans community reminds us that there is power in pop music. With much of the aesthetic for “Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” being inspired by drag queens, Roan’s subversive fashion being mainstream brings hope for a more accepting world, even if we have to be at the Pink Pony Club to get there.Â
Tweet: “the paparazzi calling her “sweetheart” and saying “please” and just genuinely being quieter and more respectful as they should she started a movement” posted by @kyoruyeye https://twitter.com/kyoruyeye/status/1886222926325973330