On 29 August 1966, 58 years ago today, The Beatles took to the stage at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park for the closing show of their US tour. The band was tired, fraught: the previous night the group had been mobbed at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, with around 7,000 fans preventing the band from leaving the venue by throwing themselves in front of their cars; some broke off hood ornaments and wing mirrors to keep as ‘souvenirs’. Having retreated, the band were imprisoned in their dressing room for two hours while police subdued the crowd. They were only finally able to leave after being bundled into the back of an armoured vehicle.
“I remember us getting in a big empty steel-lined wagon, like a removal van,” Paul McCartney later recalled. “There was no furniture in there – nothing. We were sliding around trying to hold on to something, and at that moment everyone said, ‘Oh, this bloody touring lark – I’ve had it up to here, man.’” Increasingly fatigued, annoyed, and scared by their fans’ fervour, the group unanimously decided that the Candlestick Park show was to be their last. “We were no longer on the buzz of fame and success,” George Harrison later reflected. “It was nice to be popular, but when you saw the size of it, it was ridiculous, and it felt dangerous because everybody was out of hand […] It was as if they were all in a big movie and we were the ones trapped in the middle of it. It was a very strange feeling.”
Fast forward six decades and many other public figures still feel the same. Most recently, on Friday (August 23), Chappell Roan posted a statement on Instagram to voice her concerns over fans overstepping the mark. “When I’m on stage, when I’m performing, when I’m in drag, when I’m at a work event, when I’m doing press… I am at work. Any other circumstance, I am not in work mode. I am clocked out,” she wrote. “I do not agree with the notion that I owe a mutual exchange of energy, time, or attention to people I do not know, do not trust, or who creep me out – just because they’re expressing admiration.” Roan’s Instagram statement followed two videos posted to her TikTok account on August 19, in which she also criticised fans’ entitlement. “Would you go up to a random lady and say, ‘Can I take a photo with you?’ and she says ‘No, what the fuck?’, and then you get mad at this random lady?” she said in one clip. “I’m a random bitch, you’re a random bitch. Just think about that for a second, OK?”
The artist’s comments have sparked debate and left fans divided. Some have branded the singer ungrateful, unprofessional, and unfit for fame, arguing that it’s hardly fair for artists to profit off fans’ devotion and then refuse to engage with them in public. Whether she feels this way or not, Roan is no longer a “random bitch” – she’s a musician adored by millions. And after all, isn’t this the Faustian bargain all famous people choose to make: wealth, status and success in exchange for privacy and wellbeing? Celebrities asking to enjoy the same private lives as us proles and amass wealth and status feels unjust; the idea of an individual becoming rich and revered without any drawbacks at all is just too bitter a pill for the public to swallow.
But just because this feels fair doesn’t mean it is fair, especially in the case of talented musicians like Roan who have spent years slogging their way to the top. Why should artists or actors have to ‘pay’ for the crime of excelling in their fields? Granted, some public figures actively court celebrity and appear to enjoy the limelight – the Kardashians, for example, which is why it’s so maddening when they specifically complain about living life in the public eye. But others like Roan simply want to create great art; why should they be ‘punished’ for it? In a recent interview with Esquire, Winona Ryder shared a similar view, reflecting on the frenzy which surrounded Paul Mescal after his breakthrough: “I loved Normal People so much and then I saw these paparazzi pictures of [Paul Mescal] going to the store in his shorts. And I really felt like, ‘This poor guy!’ This great actor who did this amazing thing and now he’s getting followed by photographers.”
It’s not true that fans have never overstepped until now: as aforementioned, Beatles fans were famously unhinged – as well as essentially hounding the group out of touring, fans pelted them with jelly babies and physically attacked their wives and girlfriends. Before Beatlemania there was Lisztomania, with female fans of the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt fighting one another to get their hands on musician’s handkerchiefs and gloves. Before that, there was Byromania, a term coined by Lord Byron’s wife Annabella Milbank to describe the frenzy which surrounded the poet after the publication of his seminal work Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage in 1812. But it seems as though celebrities today are more likely to speak out about their experiences of the dark side of fame.
Last spring, Phoebe Bridgers told the Wall Street Journal: “There’s a higher chance that you’ll meet a fan that you hate than a fan that you love. You’re way more likely to be confronted with someone who just violated your privacy.” Earlier this month Tyler, the Creator opened up about his own experience with “weirdo” fans during an appearance on the Mavericks podcast. “They want to know who your sister is, and like what you ate for dinner. Like, mind your fucking business,” he said. “Because of the internet, people don’t know personal boundaries anymore, and it’s normalised.” Plus, as the rapper says, it’s worth acknowledging that social media has arguably changed fandom for the worse by affording us more opportunities to interact with celebrities and helping foster a (false) sense of intimacy and familiarity with them.
And perhaps this new wave of celebrities speaking out is for the best. In extreme cases, superfans have gone on to stalk and murder their idols: John Lennon was shot dead by a fan who had become envious of the former Beatle’s lavish lifestyle; Selena Quintanilla was killed by the president of her fan club; Christina Grimmie was murdered by an obsessive fan who turned a gun on her during a meet and greet. It’s easy to see why Roan ruffled some feathers when she asked fans to refrain from approaching her in public, but her fear and anxieties are justified. Whether fans do respect stars’ wishes and reign in their enthusiasm remains to be seen, but perhaps we should welcome the rise of figures like Roan who aren’t afraid to speak candidly about their view from inside the goldfish bowl.
