Chappell Roan has reflected on her limited run of live performances this year and why “bringing queer people joy” is the reason she still loves what she does.
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The former NME Cover star has performed only a few live shows in 2025 – most of them at festivals. She just wrapped a three-city US tour in Los Angeles on October 11, where she explained to fans why she hasn’t much time on the road this year. Apart from her festival appearances, Chappell Roan has spent much of the year working on her sophomore album – though she says it’s still in its early stages.
At her final ‘Visions of Damsels & Other Dangerous Things’ show in Los Angeles, Roan told fans that she’s spent a lot of 2024 “questioning” why she’s “putting myself through” performing live, but recently came to a revelation.
Chappell Roan. Credit: Kristen Jan Wong for NME
“I wasn’t gonna do a US tour until the very last minute, I decided to do one, and I’m so glad I did. It’s so fun. This job is so awesome. Thank you for making it awesome,” Roan told the sold-out Californian crowd.
“Everything made sense this year: Why I do this. Last year, I was really questioning, ‘Why am I doing this to myself? I’m so sad. I feel so left out in public. I feel so awkward all the time.’ And I always felt like, ‘Why am I putting myself through this? If this feels so, if this is taking so much away from me, what is this for?’”
“And then I started doing shows again, and it all made sense that it was to literally bring queer people joy and tell them that it’s OK.”
Chappell Roan gives emotional speech about queer joy during night 2 in LA #chappellroan #chappellroanconcert #chapellroanfans @chappell roan #rosebowl
“There’s so many things in the world that are so ‘fuck you’ and like, then there is this. The only thing that matters anymore is joy to me. And protecting that, and peace and safety,” Roan said. “So I hope you know that when you are here, you are safe, and I want you here, you can be whoever you are tonight.”
“You’re cherished for everything that you are. Even if you’re not queer, I hope you know that I include you. This isn’t just for the gays,” she added. “Thank you for being here and supporting me and supporting each other. This is the biggest headline show I’ve ever had. So thank you.”
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Following the conclusion of the tour, Roan will return to the studio to resume work on her highly anticipated follow-up to ‘The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess’. Back in March, Roan said that she was “so beyond far away from” her second album, adding that she “could not even tell you” when it would come out.
She followed up her debut album in 2024 with the hit song ‘Good Luck, Babe!’, and later with the “full ass country song” ‘The Giver’. Her latest standalone track arrived in August in the form of the highly anticipated single ‘The Subway’.
The US run of shows also follows a huge summer of headline shows at festivals across the globe – one of which was a headline slot at this year’s Reading & Leeds, which was given a glowing five-star review by NME.
“Throughout the performance, there’s a feeling of camaraderie and community in the crowd,” it read. “Strangers become new acquaintances, the ‘Hot To Go’ dance unites everyone in clumsily trying to remember the moves and in the right order, and before ‘Red Wine Supernova’, everyone raises pink cowboy hats and pink bandanas aloft. It feels like tens of thousands of like-minded people who’ve all got the same memo and have been brought together with the same intentions.”
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