As we declared earlier this year, Chappell Roan is a star. The 26-year-old pop visionary has blown up after viral festival performances, causing her 2023 album The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess to top the charts. Tonight, she made her televised awards show debut with an extravagant performance of “Good Luck, Babe!” at the VMAs.
Roan was introduced by drag queen Sasha Colby, and the stage had a medieval setup with Roan dressed up in armor. “Good Luck, Babe!” is her latest song as well as her first top 10 hit, and she sang it earlier this year on Fallon. Roan has four nominations: Best New Artist, PUSH: Performance of the Year (for “Red Wine Supernova”), Best Trending Video (for “Hot To Go!”), and Song Of Summer (for “Good Luck, Babe!”).
Roan’s VMAs experience started off rocky when she had a back-and-forth with a photographer; the tiff follows her recent videos in which she told fans not to yell at her. She later explained the incident to Entertainment Tonight: “This is quite overwhelming and quite scary. I think for someone who gets a lot of anxiety around people yelling at you, the carpet is horrifying. And I yelled back. I yelled back! You don’t yell at me like that.” On X, Noah Kahan praised Roan for standing up for herself.
Roan also took home her first VMA, for Best New Artist. Watch her performance below. There is a lot of fire.
Chappell Roan performs “Good Luck, Babe” #VMAs pic.twitter.com/7MYonAbhpL
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) September 12, 2024
Chappell Roan tells off a photographer at the #VMAs. pic.twitter.com/wfl8uFE4s5
— Variety (@Variety) September 11, 2024
Chappell Roan on why she told photographers to shut the f*ck up on the #VMAs carpet:
“The carpet is horrifying, and I yelled back!”
pic.twitter.com/K3pjpVBSKO— Pop Flop (@PopFlopHQ) September 11, 2024
I’ll never forget leaving Clive Davis and the horrific shit photographers and paparazzi or whatever were saying to me in front of my sweet mom who couldn’t believe it was actually happening. Love this @ChappellRoan way to stand up for yourself https://t.co/3zjqMpybVa
— Noah Kahan (@NoahKahan) September 12, 2024