Chappell Roan has claimed that a producer of The Voice didn’t really “look” at her when she auditioned for the show at the age of 15.
The 27-year-old singer, whose real name is Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, reflected on auditioning for the TV series during an interview with W Magazine, published Wednesday. During the event, she sang the tune “Stay” by Rihanna for a special reason.
“That was when the Bruno Mars song ‘When I Was Your Man’ was really big, and I thought I was so unique in switching it around and singing ‘When you were my man’ and making it about gender,” she told the publication. “But every girl was like, ‘I’m switching it around.’”
However, according to Roan, there was one producer on the set who didn’t take her audition seriously.
“When I did the Voice audition, the producer or whoever the f*** was watching did not even look up from his phone,” she explained. “He was like, ‘Okay, next.’ And I went up there and sang a cappella, the scariest thing ever. He never really looked at me.”
Two years before that, the “Casual” singer auditioned for another singing competition show, America’s Got Talent, which she didn’t land a spot on either.
“I was 13, and we flew to Austin, Texas, and waited in line with thousands of people at 4 a.m. I sang ‘True Colors,’ by Cyndi Lauper,” she added. “Did not make it either.”
The “Pink Pony Club” singer previously shared that she auditioned for The Voice. When Alex Cooper asked her what her favorite song to cry to was, during an appearance on Call Her Daddy in March, Roan responded: “Stay by Rihanna, which I auditioned with for The Voice. I didn’t make it on the show, obviously. Thank god!”
Roan went on to become one of the big musical success stories of 2024, having risen to prominence after opening for Olivia Rodrigo on her Guts world tour. Since then, she’s spoken candidly about the challenges of rising to fame so quickly.
During an appearance on the Comment Section podcast in July, she said that she had grown increasingly concerned by the actions of a small number of her fans.
“People have started to be freaks,” she told podcast host Drew Afualo. “Like, [they] follow me and know where my parents live, and where my sister works. All this weird s****.
“This is the time when a few years ago when I said that if [there were] stalker vibes or my family was in danger, I would quit. And we’re there. We’re there!”
While Roan has not suggested that she would be “quitting” music, she did claim that she was trying to avoid anything that would further increase her profile as a celebrity.
One month later, she posted a lengthy statement about why she needed to “draw lines and set boundaries” when it comes to interactions with her fans. This also came after she called out fans for “creepy behavior” in two TikToks, after they had allegedly begun stalking her and her family, bullying her online, and turning abusive when she refused to pose for photos or give hugs.
“For the past 10 years I’ve been going non-stop to build my project and it’s come to the point that I need to draw lines and set boundaries,” she said via Instagram in August. “[I’ve wanted] to be an artist for a very long time. I’ve been in too many non consensual physical and social interactions and I just need to lay it out and remind you, women don’t owe you s****.”
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