What We Learned From Chappell Roan’s Call Her Daddy Interview

There’s something so loveable about Chappell Roan, and her recent appearance on the podcast Call Her Daddy makes us love her even more if that’s possible. She’s proudly flamboyant, proudly queer, and is easily capable of stripping all of that back in conversation and being completely vulnerable.

On the most recent episode of Call Her Daddy, Kayleigh Rose Amstutz sat across from host Alex Cooper in a rare moment of disarmament, going through the many contradictions of living as both an artist and a regular person.

Stripping Back the Glam

Contrary to her stage glam Roan dresses in neutrals most days, “blacks, taupes, creams” she said she leans into modesty, especially in L.A, where she feels safe dressing more masculine without judgement. Elsewhere, she shifts toward femininity for self-preservation. It’s not about aesthetics for her, it’s about emotional math. “It’s just easier, ” she admits. “I don’t want to deal with it.

It wasn’t always like this. There was a time she leaned into hyper-feminine and bimbo aesthetic that once made her feel herself. “I lost my shine because it became my job,” she says reflecting on the days she spent hours doing her makeup on TikTok live. “There was no separation, I’d look in the mirror and think, what’s the difference between Chappell and Kayleigh?”

Queer, Tired, and Vulnerable

Roan speaks very openly about her sexuality, calling herself queer and unapologetically dating women, but her relationship to sex is layered and complex. “My nervous system is so fried I can’t even feel flirtatious, ” she says. “Being sexual is so intense now. It was such a fun part of myself, and it still exists on stage, but offstage… I’ve reverted to a more shameful version of me.”

 

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She misses anonymity. She resents not being able to “just be a friendly neighbour” without fear of being recognised, or worse, stalked. “There’s so much you don’t realise that you’re signing up for, ” she states. “It’s like puberty. Your body changes. Everything hurts. Everything is uncomfortable. ”

That’s what someone told her would happen early on, and it became the advice she now repeats to others. “But eventually, you’ll find ways to make life bearable again. And, don’t read the comments.”

“Apparently, It’s Casual”

Based on Roan’s song ‘Casual,’ Cooper quizzes her on the blurry rules of dating nowadays. When asked if it’s casual if they meet your entire friend group, she responds “Apparently that’s casual, apparently it’s casual to meet your parents, and apparently it’s casual to sext for three months. ”She isn’t jaded, though. Just wary.

“I’m very pro-single. Be single and have a great time being alone, find out for yourself if you can 100% be okay on your own, ” she says, before revealing she’s been in a serious relationship for six months. “I’m dating the same person I dated before,” she stated. “I don’t know how I’d date someone new in my situation.”

When Cooper asks what kind of girl she likes, Roan’s answer is delightfully specific. “Art girls. The ones who read, and maybe collect stuff. The girls who can have an exotic pet and aren’t scared of bugs. Very niche.”

The Giver, Not the Taker

Roan wrote her new song ‘The Giver’ as a corrective to her early experiences with sex, one shaped by performance and not pleasure. “Where I grew up, I was so annoyed with how boys talked about how much the girl loved it. I think back to how performative I was,” she recalls.

“When I started sleeping with women, I didn’t know what to do. I realised how much women give. Sex should be mutual. But with men… it often wasn’t.”

 

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This stark honesty runs through all her music from ‘Hot to Go!’ to ‘Pink Pony Club’, a song inspired by her wide-eyed first visit to The Abbey in West Hollywood. She wanted to be one of the go-go dancers but was too afraid someone from her label might see her. So, instead, she became the dancer in song.

A Star Is Reborn

Roan’s heartbreak era, chronicled in her breakout song ‘My Kink is Karma’, was, in her words, “the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.” But it gave her a song, a music video, and a whole new character, “That pain fuelled something, ” she says. “It made something worth watching. ”

But the vulnerability of art-making doesn’t always feel empowering. “I think people are scared of me, ” she says. “I made a big enough deal about not wanting to be approached that now, when I’m out with my other friends that are artists, it’s like a force field.” Still, admiration is welcome, on her own terms. “It’s not that I’m ungrateful. I just don’t want people coming up to me when I’m crying about my girlfriend. Spare me.”

The Girl Back Then and the Woman Now

Kayleigh Amstutz, the girl before the glitter, was angry, restricted, and often misunderstood. “I don’t think my younger self would even register that Chappell Roan is a part of me, ” she admits. “But now, that part of me is alive.”

She’s still that girl in many ways, still tight with her hometown friends, still down to talk shit about the same people they’ve hated for 15 years. But she’s also the woman who auditioned for The Voice with Rihanna’s ‘Stay’ (she didn’t make it, to which she says “thank god”), who belts songs in the shower, and who once wrote an entire five-track EP as a romantic gift that never got released.

It’s the contradiction that we see in her real-life conversations compared to her stage persona that makes her so compelling. She really is just one of the girls who also goes through a crisis in her love life and personal life now and then.

Because honestly, what shines most about Chappell isn’t all the glitter and glam. It’s the amazing woman that she is beneath it.