Reneé Rapp’s first new music since last year’s Mean Girls soundtrack is here, and one lyric already has the internet talking. In the middle of her new single “Leave Me Alone,” the former Sex Lives of College Girls star slipped in a thinly disguised diss at the now cancelled show.
“I’m a real bad girl but a real good kisser / Leave me alone, b*tch, I wanna have fun,” Rapp sings to open the song, which also came with the announcement of her sophomore album, BITE ME. If those lyrics set the tone for her future sound, the next leave no doubt she’s ditching the past.
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“Sign a hundred NDAs but I still say something / I took my sex life with me, now the show ain’t f*ckin,'” Rapp sings in the second verse. Given the very pointed phrase “sex life,” it’s not a huge stretch to conclude that “the show” Rapp is singing about is The Sex Lives of College Girls — a bold reference that set the internet ablaze, especially given Rapp’s controversial early exit from the series. “she KNOWS that show flopped the second she left,” wrote one fan on social meida.
Rapp starred in the HBO Max series as affluent lesbian Leighton Murray from 2021 to 2024. The first sign of trouble behind the scenes came when Rapp announced her departure ahead of Season 3, meaning her character had to be written out. At the time, Rapp said that she was focusing on her music career.
“College Girls moved me out to LA and introduced me to some of my favorite people,” Rapp said in a farewell social media post. “2 and a half years later — it’s given me y’all and this community. Thank u Mindy, Justin and everyone at Max for believing in me. A lot of queer work gets belittled but playing Leighton has changed my life.”
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The experience was life-changing because Rapp was coming to terms with her own sexuality behind the scenes. But according to Rapp, that experience was far from good.
In 2023, Rapp told the Call Her Daddy podcast that she was in a heteronormative relationship while filming the show and felt pressure to come out as queer. “I’m going through set and I’m doing these scenes and I have gay men coming up to me and being like, ‘So, are you really gay? Like, do you just play gay?’ And I was like, ‘Ugh!’” she said. Rapp came out as a lesbian last year.
Later, in a 2024 interview with Vanity Fair, Rapp appeared to throw subtle shade on College Girls once again. “The people in my life that I work with now care about me as a person,” she said, speaking of her Mean Girls co-stars. “And I think that is a difference from things I’ve experienced in the past.”
One way or another, it sounds like Rapp has finally found support. Not only that, her music career is thriving, with BITE ME set to drop on August 1.
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