Chappell Roan Explains Encounter With Photographer on VMAs Red Carpet

One of the more dramatic moments of this year’s MTV Video Music Awards occurred on the red carpet when Chappell Roan — in full medieval garb — told someone in a group of photographers to “shut the fuck up.” Moments after the incident, she explained why she became upset during a separate red-carpet interview before the VMAs.

In a video from the red carpet, Roan — Rolling Stone’s current cover star — is seen staging her outfit for pictures when an apparently impatient person said something that set her off. “You shut the fuck up,” Roan yelled back, pointing her long metallic fingernail at an unseen and still-unidentified person. “No. Not me, bitch.”

After admonishing the person, Roan’s journey down the red carpet continued incident-free, culminating with an interview with Entertainment Tonight, who asked her what happened.

“This is quite overwhelming and quite scary. For someone who gets a lot of anxiety around people yelling at you, the carpet is horrifying, and I yelled back,” she told ET. “I yelled back. You don’t get to yell at me like that.”

Singer Noah Kahan was among those showing support to Roan on social media following the incident, relaying his own encounter with the paparazzi. “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,” Kahan wrote. “Love this @ChappellRoan way to stand up for yourself.”

Roan, who won Best New Artist at the VMAs and performed her hit “Good Luck, Babe” during the show, has been vocal about establishing proper boundaries between herself and her fans, a courtesy that now likely extends to the paparazzi.

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“I don’t care that abuse and harassment, stalking, whatever, is a normal thing to do to people who are famous or a little famous, whatever. I don’t care that it’s normal,” Roan recently told fans on social media.

“I don’t want whatever the fuck you think you’re supposed to be entitled to whenever you see a celebrity,” Roan clapped back. “I don’t give a fuck if you think it’s selfish of me to say no for a photo or for your time or for a hug –– that’s not normal, that’s weird!”