Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - Chappell Roan Did Nothing Wrong: The TikTok Smear Campaign Explained w/ Caroline Kwan

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

[SPECIAL BONUS EPISODE]Why the internet is trying to "end" Chappell Roan.Support my independent journalism:🙏 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/taylorlorenz     🗞️ Buy a paid subscription to my Substack: https://www.usermag.co    Twitch streamer and cultural commentator Caroline Kwan joins me to break down the massive viral controversy surrounding Chappell Roan. What started as a passing interaction at a hotel breakfast in Brazil has morphed into a multi-platform smear campaign led by TikTokers, pop stans, and "Blue MAGA" accounts, pushing blatant misinformation.  Caroline and I break down what's really going on, and debunk the claims that Chappell is a "secret heiress" or a "mean girl". We talk about why Chappell specifically is always at the center of this type of vitriol, and dive into the intersection of misogyny, homophobia, and the "death of the diva" in the age of social media.From fake claims to bot amplification to stan wars, the Chappell situation a case study in how bad actors on the internet can create controversy out of almost nothing.In this video, we discuss:The Brazil incident with Jorginho Frello’s stepdaughter.The debunked "rich kid" allegations and fake high school "exposés".Why Chappell Roan cut ties with Wasserman Music and the Epstein connection.The role of bots and "tea" accounts in fueling the outrage.The double standard between female pop stars and male celebrities like Tom Holland or Justin Bieber.#ChappellRoan #celeb #celebrity #celebritynews #pop #popstars #popmusic #oliviarodrigo #PopCulture #SocialMedia #ViralNews 

And I think a lot of people looked at this and went, finally, we can end her here. This woman who's been a problem, who we don't like, no matter her actual involvement or not, because they don't care about the facts here, they care about being able to finally burn her at the stake. If you've been on the internet lately, you might have been confronted with a deluge of headlines,

TikToks, and social media posts about Chapel Rhone. Chapel Rhone is the latest celebrity woman to be caught in the midst of an audience online viral controversy after her alleged bodyguard snubbed an 11 year old fan in Brazil. Now none of that is actually what happened, but today I have Caroline Kwan here. Caroline Kwan is a Twitch streamer and cultural commentator and she's joining me today to break down exactly how this chapel rhone viral controversy started, how it morphed into this multifaceted hate campaign and talk about why chapel specifically is always at the center of this type of discourse.

We're going to be debunking a lot of misinformation that is spread all over TikTok and talk about the broader issues at play in entertainment, pop media, and why we don't have pop divas anymore. Caroline, welcome to power user. I have so much to say about this topic that we're about to get into and I'm very excited to be here and I'm going to try my best to not say everything at once. You know, it's so funny because I really debated even doing this episode just in that like I feel like sometimes I'm like an ambulance chaser for like hate campaigns against women. But then, you know, it gets to a point it gets to a point where it gets so big and so and it and it's really influencing like the

media cycle and no matter how many of these campaigns we've covered they all do kind of have these distinctive kind of like nuances to them so i want to break down you know for everyone that that hasn't been on social media i guess for the past few weeks and followed this like what's going on with chapel rhone and why is chapel ron always the subject of this stuff i know some people would like oh i already know the story yeah everyone hates her because she's lesbian or like oh she's mean she hates kids, but I don't need to listen. This story is actually crazier and more nuanced than you think. So we're going to get into it today. And I'm so glad to have you. Yeah. Also, please people understand that even if you have a basic understanding and you think it's stupid, you need to

understand that this has far reaching implications every single time. And the reason we keep ending up in these situations is because of a mixture of people directly participating and then also indirectly kind of waving it off. So it is important that people understand. understand what is at the root here and what is always at the root here. So about a week ago, we had Chapel Rhone, who was in Brazil. She was in Sao Paulo for Lallapalooza, Brazil. So while Chapel Rhone is at breakfast at this hotel in Brazil, the 11-year-old stepdaughter of this Brazilian Italian soccer star called Georgino Frelow

allegedly tries to go over and talk to her, maybe just like kind of smiled and walked past Rohn's tables, table just to confirm it was her without even interacting with Chaparone. After that, basically nothing interaction. Georgino posts this like wall of text to Instagram alleging that a large security guard approached him and his wife and stepdaughter in an extremely aggressive manner and that the guard accused the child of disrespecting and harassing Chapel Rhone and threatened to report them to hotel management and this left his stepdaughter in tears. Chapel Rhone responded on Instagram stories and was like, I don't even know what you guys are talking about.

I did not even see this. I did not see the mother or the child. And the security guard, whatever security guard this was, is certainly not my personal security guard. I mean, I feel like the minute that Giorgino posted this Instagram post, it went viral. So he posts this. And I will say I initially saw it.

And I guess I'm still pretty naive. And I thought that this would not go Insta global. So I was like, oh, whatever. Okay, I don't need to jump in on this conversation. And then suddenly, it was global mass outrage. You had the mayor of Rio de Janeiro saying that Chapel Rhone is banned from performing there. There were thousands and thousands of comments and posts, and it is only multiplied greatly

since then. But it really felt like matches lit, boom, there goes the wildfire. It was crazy. I mean, I sent you guys like a screen recording in this group chat of my Twitter feed. It was back to back to back thousands and thousands of posts. And the discussion was mainly centered on how like Chapel Rhone is a, you know, evil, entitled, terrible person who hates children. I mean, it's worth noting that this is obviously not sort of her first like controversy,

I guess I could say relating children during a March appearance last year on call her daddy. She said all of my friends who have kids are in hell and basically was saying that she didn't know anyone who had kids that were was happy or still had life. in their eyes. And so people were like, she hates children. She hates children. And, you know, throughout really since 2024, she has been known to sort of like set these strict boundaries specifically with like photographers and fans. So I think that's where this like there was already kind of this narrative bubbling up of like this entitled evil celebrity hates children. How can you hate children? And, you know, she's drawing boundaries that we feel like are too sharp.

What I think is so crazy is like if you want to talk about exploiting children or, you know, mistreating children, this footballer guy, like, put, made his daughter the center of an international celebrity controversy without her consent, you know, because she cried one time. And I think that that's more offensive than Chapel Rhone, you know, even if Chaparone did throw them out of the restaurant for like, you know, approaching her weird or whatever. Here's the two people who have honestly suffered the most from what Giorginio did. Chapel Rhone, obviously. And then his daughter, as you said, because now there are so many people who, who know her face, know her name.

have posted really intimately about her. But also, you know, it's on both sides. It's people who are blaming the 11-year-old girl for everything. And then it's people who are blaming Chapel Rhone. And what's crazy is that this is the behavior, ultimately, of two men. And even though, yes, the girl's mother got involved

and she posted that thing, it was the football-playing stepfather who made the initial post, lambasting chapel, sending so much hatred her way. And then the security guard, who we can talk about his statement, but he's the one who,

no matter what you believe of the details, was the one who went up to this girl and her mother. Yeah, and the security guard came out and said, basically, he takes responsibility, and he was actually at the hotel on behalf of somebody else, not even Chapel Rhone, and stated actually that these accusations that he was aggressive were completely,

false. So, you know, I don't know the details of what happened. Of course, we'll never know. We don't have video footage of that day even. But to me, it's just like there's so many red flags here. And another one is that like this little 11 year old girl and her father were going around trying to get pictures with a lot of celebrities. She's taken pictures with celebrities before. And I could imagine a world where like, I don't know, she cries for some reason. Kids are always crying. You know, who knows if she even really cried. But maybe because she didn't get her father's approval in that moment. Who knows? I think ultimately, too, I'm not even interested in litigating the details here because that's not what the main problem is that you've seen that I've seen that we've been talking about.

And that is the outsized, very, very, very vitriolic hate campaign that Chapel Rhone has been subjected to. Yet again, this is now a culmination. And I think a lot of people looked at this and went, finally, we can end her here. woman who's been a problem who we don't like, this is the final straw, no matter her actual involvement or not, because they don't care about the facts here. They care about being able to finally burn her at the stake. Yes. And let's talk about some of the groups coming for her. So immediately after this news breaks, you have these Stan accounts weaponizing it. So you have, like, one, the Chapel Roan stand accounts coming out and trying to counteract these narratives. But

they're fighting with Taylor Swift's Stann accounts, the Ariana Stannica, like all of these different pop girlie fandoms coming and kind of like trying to litigate it in real time through their own lens of fandom. And so I think that that like kind of poisoned the discourse immediately. Yes. And then all the pop culture and snark pages that immediately get involved. And like you said, there's a crossover here with the different stand-ums. And funny enough, I did see certain Ariana stands and certain Taylor stands going,

what are we doing here? Why are you all participating in this when we have fought so hard against this type of system that affects our fave? That these are similar tactics that are employed that we are always having to battle against.

So why are we participating now? I think that, I mean, we talked about, recently with like Nikki Minaj as well. Like there's just there's this like a lot of like toxic kind of yeah, like Stan Wars at play and people not liking, you know, chapel because of some shade that she threw on some other artist, you know, allegedly years ago, et cetera, et cetera.

I mean, you have like also the T accounts for lack of a better word that are just like pop. They're not like pop bass and pop crave, but they're kind of like lower versions of them. And by the way, there's also like the parody versions of those accounts that we're making these like ridiculous claims about it. kept going viral that people thought were true. And it was like, guys, that's not the real pop-based account.

Take a look at the actual name. And it says parody in the title. I know, but people just share everything. And I mean, at this point is when I saw also the mainstream media hop on board where the New York Times started publishing multiple stories on this topic and like major mainstream media outlets, which I think they kind of saw the online discussion. And we're like, oh, SEO, we got to, you know, we got to hop on it. And that seemed to like just further validate all of these pop accounts,

which often aggregate from mainstream media to cover. And it just very quickly, you know, spiraled out of control. Also, these drama T-snark-based pop culture accounts, they are incentivized and also operate from a framework of smearing celebrity women. That is usually the position that they employ. And what happens then is when Normies try and, When they kind of see something going on, they're like, oh, what's this Chapel Rhone thing? They go to YouTube.

They go to TikTok. They'll Google search. And what pops up is so much of the hate, the anti-chapel or whoever woman it is, position, because that's who gets there early. And that's who makes primarily this kind of content. So you go to YouTube and every video is like Chapel Rhone has finally gone too far. Chapel Rhone needs to stop being such a wicked bitch. Like that is the framing of it.

And so then people who don't know and aren't kind of curious about inquiring just a little bit further here, they'll see that position go, oh, okay. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think also just like it's funny. Like there was a bunch of like funny memes about it that like I even saw and like laughed at. And I think like the meme accounts get involved and it just sort of spreads and it becomes a meme. And it's like, okay, but that meme is ultimately kind of. of pretty defamatory and harmful.

Into all of this, too, you have a lot of people that hate Chapel Rhone for political reasons. So Chapel Rhone chose not to endorse Kamala Harris, although she ultimately voted for her. But you have these like a blue MAGA accounts that jumped on this very early and were fueling the fame, flames. And you also have the fact that Chapel Rhone is a staunch supporter of Palestine and one of the few celebrities that has really spoken out

about the, you know, what's going on over there. And I think that that also seemed to be a motivating factor for some people. There was this woman Jacqueline Powers who is a hardcore Zionist, you know, writer, basically just a freelancer. And people were looking up her Instagram account and she follows just the most hardcore Zionist ever. She wrote this insane daily mail post titled, The Bitch Beneath the Makeup, Chapel Rones diss of that crying 11 year old fan actually revealed her dark truth. This article is just like, I can't believe that like a. hateful AI didn't write it. And also for them to put bitch in the headline is crazy. I mean, that's a lot of the language that we've seen describing her on the internet through media and

tabloid posts. So I'm not surprised that Jacqueline Powers used that word because it also reinforces what's happening here, which is that Chapel Rhone is a problem. She's a bitch. She's difficult. she has stepped out of line one too many times. And that is enough to churn up. Like people are so reactionary. That's the truth. So many people are very reactionary, no matter what specific politics they ascribe to.

So I think, you know, her supporters start discussing these dynamics very quickly. You saw even some in the pop stendum world be like, hold up. You guys, I think this is just another hate campaign against. women look at the fact that it's pretty much Zionist blue maga people accounts that don't traditionally support women that are attacking her like this is a sci-up stop falling for it also by the way just a month ago chapel rhone actually cut ties with her PR and talent agency waserman music after kacey waserman was found to be part of the epstein files and was flirting with glain maxwell so i feel like the the sort of narrative change for like six hours where it was clear that

basically chapel had nothing to do with this interaction in Brazil. It was clear that actually a lot of the people hating on her are just bad faith, you know, people that hate her for her Palestine views, her political views, or potentially are participating in a smear campaign from her old talent agency, who knows. And then we start to see things change again. Because into that mix, suddenly there's this viral TikTok and a tweet that went along with it that got 7.2 million views. This random account, with only 1,900 followers posted, oh, Chapel Rhone comes from money, money. OMG, oh, please.

This little schick has just got more corny. And these accounts start linking to this TikTok video, effectively claiming that Chapel Rhone is secretly rich and an heiress and her entire backstory is like a lie. And this to me is like, at least, I don't know, your perception, this is when the floodgates open to me. Because then it was like, okay, who cares that that was, you know, that there was a sort of like,

original controversy. Now it's just let's destroy Chapel Rhone time. And now the discourse is open of like, can we finally admit that like we don't like this woman? Yeah. People felt like they were losing steam that, okay, this original controversy, there's not enough here because too many people don't care even if she had told a child that she can't take a photo with her. So yeah, then they started to go, all right, where else can we hit her? What else can we say here that's going to smear Chapel Rhone that's going to delegitimize any pushback against this hate campaign. Yeah, and I feel like this like really stuck. Like this idea of like actually she's a privileged evil, terrible woman who's like also

secretly connected to MAGA. Like I think that fed into like a lot of these blue MAGA delusions. All of this stuff was just, it was presented in this series of TikToks from an account that no longer exists, mind you. It was just making these ridiculous claims. People tweeted like they shared this video saying, I knew her uncle was MAGA congressman, but damn, she's rich, rich for real. The irony of her fans coming for this poor girl calling her an entitled spoiled brat.

Just for it to be revealed, she's faking her trailer part background. First of all, this TikTok is slop. Like people, this is part of this like ongoing plague of people kind of like mimicking the style and like vocal effects of like investigative journalism to just present absolute like delusions, like Q and on level like misinformation. but then people sort of like fall for it immediately and they and because it validates their worldview and I think it's so interesting because it's this idea of like she's a liar right like she's not really a lesbian I mean another thing that was brought up in these videos is like

she was actually rich she had a boyfriend which she's never hidden by the way she's talked about that in her in her lyrics and in interviews as well but that doesn't matter because we're not talking about people who are grounded in any reality here you you have people who are full on right fiction and that spreads so rapidly and it confirms people's biases but also just what they what they feel is finally okay this is something that we can go after this person on it it makes it feel like it's more legitimate that they have just cause to tear her down so there was a random account on twitter and it turned out to be a man who stole the photo of some TikTok girl,

and he used this account that had less than 100 followers and didn't have any posts. And he quote tweeted the TikTok that had gone viral, that was just total slop misinformation, and said LMAO went to high school with Chapel, who then he was referring to as Kaylee and her boyfriend, and then spread all this stuff about her being homophobic, racist, all these, like, specific details,

but that clearly, when you take one look at it, go, this is bullshit. Like, this is clearly made up. But that went viral too. His tweet, and again, he presented himself as a girl on Twitter, because this was a stolen profile picture, this tweet and the follow-ups went viral. Yeah, I mean, I just think, like, we entered into this, like, soup of viral false claims. And, you know, some people did start to refute some of it.

They found, you know, there was these ideas that, oh, she went to this, like expensive Grammy camp, you know, where there was, it was like thousands of dollars and it was all summer. Actually, she went to like a one week program and she had to, it's in the public newspaper in her town that like she had to fundraise just to get there. Like, again, all of this stuff is just blatant smears. Like it's people being like, oh, yeah, I knew Chapel before she was famous. Like, oh, she was lying. Or oh, she never knew Olivia Rodrigo back in the day, you know, like allegedly Olivia used to visit Chapel when she worked at this like, I think it was a donut shop. And they were like, oh, she probably never had that job.

Like these claims are all being made by people that could easily go back and fact check this information because there was reporting even in the time. There's photos that they've, you know, her and Olivia have shared from that time. Like this is well documented. But it doesn't matter because it just feeds into people's beliefs. And it feeds this idea of like, here's this secretly privileged white woman and she's ungrateful and privileged. Then we're just back at the classic chapel rhone hate that we've been stuck in since 2024. because it always kind of comes back to that same narrative. And because she's poor, because she's queer,

you know, some of those sort of privileged white women traditional misogyny stuff doesn't always stick to her. But that's what it always kind of comes back to. And I feel like that's what we saw it eventually revert to with this. I think too, when you are constantly battling the next viral, misinformative TikTok or tweet or whatever it is, you're just pulled deeper and deeper down into the muck. And then what will happen too is normal people go, okay, this is like so insane.

I don't care about this. Or those of us who are trying to fight misinformation, who are trying to redirect people back to what's actually happening here, we're told, well, why do you care about celebrities so much? You guys are just celebrity obsessed, especially if it's a white female celebrity, they'll go, you only do this for rich white women. And it's so frustrating because what we're trying to, explain here is that, first of all, Chapel is also attacked due to the fact that she is openly a lesbian woman. This is not just she is a woman. She is a lesbian woman. So that plays a part here.

That's that's what it's rooted in. But also because, look, when this happens to rich, privileged white women, even when they have a queer identity, do you understand the result of the result on the broader culture here on women who are not white, women who are not wealthy, women who do not have these privileges. But this gives permission to fully go after all women. And then depending on those conditions of marginalization, how the consequences are just more severe. Yeah, it's really just, I mean, but it's interesting kind of like how, I mean, I've talked about this before in conversations around like white women, but it's like white, that, White women experience this like very specific type of misogyny.

And as they especially experience misogyny and hate when they align with other marginalized groups or identify as part of those marginalized groups, like in this case, she's obviously a lesbian. But she's also pro-Palestine. She's also intersectional. Like she's spoken out about a lot. Ironically, a celebrity that had a really good take on this and I almost never say these words, Jamila Jamila. Jamila honestly has had some pretty deranged takes over the years. But she posted this Instagram story that I want to read and I do think she made some good points. So she's being facetious here, but she says, I just want to

agree with all the chapel road hate. She's pro-Palestine, pro-woman, pro-asking for basic respect in the industry. She left a huge management firm publicly because the owner was in the Epstein files. She's pro-trans. She's pro-gay. She's anti-establishment. She de-centres men in all of her rhetoric and she empowers millions of young people. She calls out her own industry for neglecting the health of young artists. None of this media fueled hate is a whipped-up smear campaign, exaggerating her every move or blaming her for the actions of people on her team in order to make an example of a woman who set a few minor boundaries for herself for her own personal mental health as a fragile person. This is not to send a warning to other women to not try being outspoken

and disobedient. Women are not supposed to have boundaries ever. We're just supposed to smile. Okay, I know that's very kind of confusing because she's being sarcastic. But I do think like she's right. Like that is true. Like that is like all of those things that she mentioned, the chapel around sports. Like all of those actually make her a very intense target for online hate campaigns. Yes. I just think all the time about how we see the consequences applied when we treat celebrity women with such disdain and hatred and hold them to impossibly high standards. We see how that affects everyone else under these same systems of control. And people are quick to dismiss when it's celebrity women because they don't see them as human beings.

They think because of their higher economic class position that actually none of this matters. But we saw the chilling effect after Amber Hurd's trial that men, normal men, not famous men, refer to their girlfriends as Amber Hurds. We saw Usher defended Diddy under the great man defense, like, oh, Diddy's just too talented and too great to consider his legacy as anything other than what he did as a business. man and how that comes at the expense of Cassie and his other victims. And that also then affects women in the rest of culture, that if they are victim to an abusive man, then their lives are always deprioritized. So there are a lot of examples here. And then do you want to talk about

two specifically the double standards with calling out paparazzi because there are plenty, plenty of instances of men doing this and they're praised for it, right? You have Tom Holland, who recently got in the face of paparazzi to defend Zendaya and people applauded him for that. You had Justin Bieber saying, I'm not to be fucked with. Is it not clock into you? I'm staying on business. And yes, people memed that. But nobody was like, Justin Bieber has, you know, enough is enough.

Nobody took the pro-poparazzi position when it was Justin Bieber. And same with Sean Penn. Sean Penn like beat the shit out of a reporter one time. That man just won an Oscar. Nobody cares when men stand up against poplar. when they snap due to being surveilled and harassed and followed. It's a different standard. And that is what we're seeing in the way that Chapel is expected to behave.

And because she behaves outside of the standard, then it's fair game in crushing her. And she barely behaves outside the standard. Like in this case, like she didn't do anything. It's so absurd. She literally just like, she went to breakfast at, the hotel and like some security guard that doesn't work for her had an interaction with some guests that she never had anything to do with. And it's just like, I mean, I do think that that

there is just this like aggressive and intense effort to destroy her because of her progressive views. And I will say that like women who are more conservative who kind of set these boundaries, like don't get the hate as much. I mean, conservative women don't generally set these boundaries. But like I'm just thinking of even like Megan Kelly or some of these other kind of like conservative influencer women that they are sort of known to to set boundaries. with the media, with photographers, etc. But you don't have this whole like hate industrial complex aimed at them. You don't have the entire Blue MAGA movement and, you know, anti-Palestine movement and anti-LGBQ

movement. And like, honestly, so many liberals. Like, that's the thing. It's like, Chaparron, of course, she gets hate from like a lot of people on the right. But it's almost the hate that she gets from these like ostensibly liberal people from the left that I think is the most damaging. Like that girl that tried to claim that she's, oh, secretly rich and all this stuff, again, completely debunked. And of course, the post debunking, it only got 4,000 likes, whereas one of the many posts claiming, you know, is promoting this conspiracy theory got like millions and millions and millions of views.

But they're doing it from this sort of like with this like liberal language. You mean, you've heard this a lot with Amber Heard, with Blake lively, whatever, right? It's like, well, Blake is actually a rich, white problematic woman. And, you know, that's the problem. Like, same with Amber Heard, right? she's rich, white, problematic. And I don't know, I just, I think it sticks harder, right? It sticks harder because it launders fundamentally reactionary rhetoric through through this

sort of like progressive lens and allows for a reactionary hate campaign against a progressive woman to stick. Yeah. And I think obviously there are there are differences in the type of misogyny and the way we see it manifest when you have wealthy white female celebrities versus black female celebrities. And the consequences to the rest of us, it doesn't matter whether it's a Blake Lively or it's a Meg the Stallion. Like Meg, who just won a lawsuit against a blogger who ran a smear campaign against her.

Like this is all connected. And I wish people who go, oh, but I don't care about Chapel because she's just a white woman. I wish they understood that this has still an effect, because of course it does. Yeah, I just like want people to understand, though, that like I do think that these like privileged white women, they are used as an example and that like these hate campaigns are laundered to the left through that mechanism, right? And people will say a lot of stuff about these sort of quote unquote rich right women. And obviously chapel gets homophobia on top of that as well.

But it's stuff that that trickles down. And suddenly you've just normalized like like even if she was rich. Say Chapel Roan was rich, right? Like, okay, if she had lied about it, maybe that's, you know, a scandal. But Blake lively never lied about being rich, right? And that's still used to discredit her. Amber Hurd never lied about being, you know, privileged.

And that's still used to discredit her. So I just think like at the end of the day, it's about discrediting women and hating on women and furthering, you know, further smearing progressive women's careers. Like the thing is, is now she is viewed as controversial. And that's actually something I, I was hearing recently from another talent agent person where they were talking about sort of controversy and how they think about signing talent. I do think that this is going to have an effect on her career.

Like people that are, especially women that are viewed as difficult in the entertainment industry, things don't usually go well for them. Zara Larson just talked about how she lost a $3 million deal because she made jokes about abortion. And yeah, this does have consequence both in the way that the public views these celebrity women. and then also in the considerations that companies and the industry makes because we see all the time when women get blacklisted, we see this happen to Janet Jackson. For something a man, Justin Timberlake, did to her. She was blacklisted for years.

She lost so many deals. She wasn't allowed to go to the Grammys. So yes, this is something that is, it goes beyond just the court of public opinion decides that they hate this woman. Also, the sad thing is, is when you are the subject, as you and I both know, of online controversy, it just sort of like becomes this like, this like goo that covers you that you can never get off in the sense that like all of these things have been debunked. Like I've been through so many cycles like this, right?

Like somebody makes a ridiculous claim. You spend days debunking it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's ultimately proved untrue that, of course, the debunking never goes as viral as the original claim. That sort of claim just gets repeated as nauseam forever. And you're viewed as controversial. And so, yeah, you are excluded from ad campaigns. You're excluded from opportunities because the reality is in media and entertainment.

There are endless women, right? There are endless people that will take your place. And these executives, these people that do brand deals, that do the partnerships that invite, you know, decide who gets to walk the red carpet. Even if they know that that stuff is untrue, they also know that, you know what, this person has a really vocal, dedicated online groups of, like, haters. And I don't want that controversy brought or affiliated. with my brand or my event, et cetera.

I mean, I've dealt with this with like the Ethan Klein fans where it's like, they just like swarm, you know, often so many things I do. And it's like, even I talk to a brand manager that I worked with it, he's like, whatever, very cool and doesn't care. But like, if that wasn't my friend, like, you could see how like, just again, it's just like, if controversy follows you as a woman and you have dedicated haters, you will not get at our opportunities. Whereas men that are controversial and have, have dedicated haters, that's never a problem.

Well, I think, too, you have to look at what it is. that is the nature of the controversy. Because of gender double standards, for women, it can be as much as that they're seen as a little mean, that they, whatever they do to step out of the very rigidly drawn lines, then that is controversial. So it's not even like comparable to what is considered misconduct and bad behavior from men because of those double standards.

But yes, as you said, it is a goo. It is something that especially in the internet age, no matter what you do, if I post a photo of my dog, there's going to be so many comments that are a continuation of every single smear and hate campaign that I've been victim to. So whatever I do in my work, that follows me around. And the absurdity of the base of those smears doesn't change. Like, it's ridiculous. It is absolutely baseless. But it's, still follows me everywhere. I also think it's interesting, you know, to see the reaction to Chapel Rhone when we're seeing these bigger discussions in the entertainment world about like divas,

like Harper's Bazaar ran this big story a couple days ago called, is the diva in danger of extinction? Can new divas rise in an era that demands constant access and relatability from its pop stars? And it's basically saying that like, you know, we used to have these like pop stars that were larger than life. And like it talks about Gaga's like, you know, late 2000s, kind of early 2010's like fame era. And I do think that like social media and that reactivity and these hate campaigns is making it harder for some of these women to rise to like diva status because they're just ripped apart so aggressively. And like I mean, as this article talks about too, it's like the divas we have now almost like all came before that because the younger generation,

they have to deal with this and they're just constantly getting torn down. And like they're never, they never have the chance to like really ascend to that star power where on. the controversy doesn't matter as much. I think of a woman like Elizabeth Taylor, and despite the fact that when she was having her affairs with multiple affairs with Richard Burton, the Vatican tried to step in. Like that's, it was the 1950s, you know?

And this is actually what led to paparazzi culture was the obsession over Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. But Elizabeth Taylor was, she was a diva. She was a woman who was larger than life, was not always doing. the most morally correct things. But there was like an admiration. And today, this, the way that Elizabeth Taylor

is referenced in pop culture and in media, Taylor Swift has a song with her name in it, that she is held up as like, this woman who did what she wanted. And just looking at someone like Chapel, who, as we've said, really, what has she done? What is her crime? What is this supposed problematic behavior?

And yet the, the, outsized response to it and the the scrutinizing of every single little thing she does, it's crazy. I saw one person comment and say, oh my God, these people today would never have been able to handle Mariah Carey from the 2000s the way that they are responding to a chapel round. Well, I think it's true. I mean, they were vicious to Mariah too, but it was more the tabloids that were vicious. But like, but the thing is like it's different. Also, that was so different because you didn't have this like grassroots stuff and say what you will about the tabloids, but they had, I don't want to say they have some commitment to the truth because they truly do not, but like,

they always understood that they could be sued for defamation. And so they would never publish like a flat out lie in the same way as this TikTok. Like they do publish a lot of false information, but it's sort of like it has to be like sourced from somewhere. There has to be a little something to it because they're at the end of the day, there are still sort of journalistic institutions that go through editorial review, whereas like these random TikTok and Twitter accounts can just be like anyone. And you don't know their motivations. You don't know who's doing it. Like it's that part is really disturbing. And I just, yeah, I don't know. I wonder like how high chapels star will rise and like what all of this means for like the pop talent that we're cultivating. She's already said that she

doesn't want to speak out publicly. She has talked about this because of how frequently it results in backlash. And a lot of times even when she tells herself not to say something that she still does, she's only 26 years old, mind you. Like, compare in mind as a 26 year old young woman. So she's addressed that. She, I think, is well aware of how crazy people go when she says or does anything. And I do think that the one, I think what concerns me is always the chilling effect at play, whether it is through these high-profile cases of domestic violence and sexual abuse, or people who speak out on important issues like Palestine and trans rights, both issues that Chapel has spoken out publicly on,

and that is part of why we see this constant, constant, attacking of her and this backlash. Well, I think women basically realize that they can't be progressive. You can't be progressive, and in Hollywood, you can't be a progressive women in media. You are going to just get nonstop, misogynistic hate. Your male colleagues, you know, in entertainment

are not going to have your back. Because I don't see the male pop star is really coming in and defending her. Not that, you know, like I just think like they're really left hung out to dry. And I worry for her. And I'm like, how many times are we going to go through this? Like how many more chapel road outreach cycles are we going to see?

And I just, I hope people listening, it's like the next time you see it, just recognize it for what it is. And not to say like, because also people like, well, ever, you say everything's Amber Heard. You say everything's said it up. But it's like, well, I'm sorry, but that really was the blueprint. That really was the blueprint. We continue to see it in action.

And it's not getting better because you guys keep falling for this shit. And I don't understand how we all have hindsight, you know, hindsight's 2020. We all understand that what happened to Brittany was wrong. What happened to Amy? What happened to Janet? What happened to all these women in the 2000s who were so viciously smeared by the tabloid media machines and also by. the public, just not on the internet like we have it now.

How do people get that after the fact? How is it that we go, oh, yeah, that was so wrong. But then we're doing it all over again. And with Brittany, people are calling for her to be back in a conservatorship because she got a DUI. Meanwhile, Shia LeBuff just saw that video of him screaming at a woman that he is an abuser who's being sued again from FK Twigs. and nobody's calling for him to be in a conservatorship.

Nobody is applying the same thing here. So even just the example of Brittany, where we went from treating Britney horribly to then her being shoved in a conservatorship for years and then the free Britney movement and everyone went, oh my God, we were so wrong. I'm on Brittany's side to calls yet again to essentially lock her up.

It's really sad. I mean, I think there's so much like ableism too in the Britney discourse to like unpack. I just want people to have a little bit more critical thinking. I mean, BuzzFeed also published this investigation today, claiming that actually a bunch of discourse around Chapel Rohn was driven by bots. They found that a significant portion, in some case, 23% over 23% of posts were actually bot-driven. I saw screenshots.

I think I sent them to you earlier, people saying that they were like basically paid to like participate in this discussion. Honestly, what I think rather than I think that there's some like evil nefarious like bot network at work, I think that just like anybody hops on these things because they're trending and because they're easy engagement. So I think like we all just need to be a little bit more skeptical of the content that we're seeing online, especially when it comes to like women and women on the internet. And hopefully everybody can remember that, you know, the next time chapel is at the center of one of these. Chapel or whoever else it is. And yeah, maybe people can stop and go, hold on.

I've seen this 10 million times before. It's not going to be the fell for it again award here. Well, Caroline, thank you so much for joining me and chatting about all this. today. Thank you for having me and thank you for having a platform here on YouTube where we can have these conversations. All right, that's it for the show. If you like my work, please, please support me on Patreon or Substack via the link below. If you buy a paid subscription to my Substack newsletter, you're directly helping facilitate this podcast. I have zero zero advertisers right now. So my work is 100% supported by people like you. You can also support me on Patreon.

Again, via the link below on my Patreon. I do a bonus Q&A live stream every month. You can also get my newsletter there truly every single dollar of your support makes such a difference it helps boost it in the feed and get this show recommended to more audiences i'll be back next week with a brand new episode of power user see you then