As much as the superstars love their fans, fans are predators.” So said the late Dr Donna Rockwell, a clinical psychologist and one of the world’s leading experts on fame and celebrity, during an interview with The Face in 2019. “In a way [fame is] almost like an excommunication because now you are an object. People are watching you.”
Her words were an eerie foreshadowing of a sentiment recently expressed by Chappell Roan, the American singer who shot to stratospheric fame this year. “If you saw a random woman on the street, would you yell at her from your car window? Would you harass her in public?” Roan said in a social media video calling out fans’ behaviour in August. “Would you stalk her family? Would you follow her around? Would you try to dissect her life and bully her online?”
