Chappell Roan is unquestionably having a moment (if the entirety of 2024 qualifies as a "moment," at least)—but she says that even a year ago, she wouldn't have been able to handle the life she has now.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, the 26-year-old artist opened up about her mental health, the impact bipolar II disorder has had on her life (and career), and her journey to finally getting the treatment that worked for her.
Although she wasn't formally diagnosed until a few years ago, Roan, whose real name is Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, said that her struggles with mental health date back much further.
"I felt so miserable for my whole childhood,” she said, adding that, "all my parents could do was try their best.”
Roan's formal diagnosis of bipolar II disorder in summer of 2020 probably couldn't have come at a much more tumultuous time in her life. Not only was she dealing with the same pandemic-related stresses as the rest of the world at the time, but she had just been dropped by her first label, Atlantic Records, and ended a four-year relationship.
She was only 22 at the time and dealt with the upheaval the same way a lot of young adults would: She moved back home to regroup. That process included working a job at a drive-through in Missouri and getting into therapy with her family.
“It saved us,” she explained. “I was like, ‘I can’t go my whole life hating my parents for not knowing how to handle a really, really sick child.’ I was just miserable.”
Not long after she moved back to Los Angeles to work on her music career again, Roan found massive popularity on TikTok, where she says she started gaining a lot of followers when she was "being really insane" on the app—behavior she attributes to hypomania, a common symptom of bipolar II that causes increased energy and elevated mood.
"I wasn’t sleeping. I was on the incorrect meds," she said of that period of her life. "I had the energy and the delusion and realized that this app is fueled off of mental illness. Straight up.”
By 2022, Roan decided to enter outpatient therapy while struggling with suicidal ideation.
“I realized I can’t live like this. I can’t live being so depressed or feel so lost that I want to kill myself. I just got my shit together,” she said, explaining that she's grateful she got the treatment and help she needed before the massive fame she's experiencing now. "I would not have been able to handle any of this even a year ago today. It would’ve just been too much.”
