Nowadays, Chappell Roan is one of the music industry’s loudest and proudest lesbians, but like any queer person, she had to discover her identity before she could share it with the world. Now, in a new Q&A, she told the story of how she became confident in her lesbian identity and the song that her coming-out experience inspired.
While being interviewed by Brandi Carlile at the Grammy Museum, Roan shared that years ago, she fell in love with a close friend. After confessing her feelings to that friend, she wrote the song “Kaleidoscope” off her Grammy-nominated debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. Though Roan’s friend didn’t reciprocate her feelings, she said the experience “confirmed” her sexuality.
“I had been calling myself, like, ‘Oh, yeah, I think I’m queer or whatever.’ But that was like, ‘no no no.’ I was in love with her,” Roan said. “It was so amazing, even though she didn’t feel the same back.”
“I’m so grateful that that happened, because, one, for the first time I got confirmation that like, yeah, I am not a fraud for saying that I’m gay; and two, what an incredible person to fall in love with for the first time. Like, your best friend that you think is awesome and hilarious?” Roan continued. “It was just perfect, looking back.”
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So, how did Roan’s love confession change her relationship with that friend? “We had to take a year off,” Roan said, pointing to lyrics in the second verse of “Kaleidoscope”: “If you change your mind, I will understand / And it’ll just take time to go back to being friends.”
“It took a year and a half of not speaking,” Roan continued. “But I think that’s the beautiful relationships of women, that you can grow up, and that’s why lesbians are living with their exes with their new girlfriends! Like, it’s crazy!”
As of today, Roan is a first-time Grammy nominee, having been nominated for all four of the awards ceremony’s most prestigious awards: Best New Artist, Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Album of the Year. She also scored nominations for Best Pop Solo Performance and Best Pop Vocal Album.
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