Broadway’s Romeo + Juliet star Rachel Zegler feels a certain kinship with Chappell Roan after her comments about setting boundaries with fans. In her MOMENT by Teen Vogue cover interview (alongside her Broadway costar Kit Connor), Zegler opened up about resonating with Roan’s statements — and watching so many women, including Taylor Swift, Halle Bailey, and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, be torn apart on the internet.
This past summer, Roan spoke out about her experiences with fans who clearly crossed a line in her personal life. In a series of TikToks, she posed a not-so-hypothetical situation where she was just a random person on the street: “Would you stalk her family? Would you follow her around? Would you try to dissect her life and bully her online? This is a lady you don’t know, and she doesn’t know you at all. Would you assume that she’s a good person, assume she’s a bad person? Would you assume everything you read online about her is true?”
In her Teen Vogue interview, Zegler called Roan “my girl” and said she supported her statements about fame and how we treat celebrities. “…the second one loses their anonymity, they lose everything that comes with it, and that is comfort. I made a vow to myself after last summer where everything was really horrible for me online, that I would not spend a single second being uncomfortable that I didn’t have to…” Zegler said, referencing the backlash she received around Snow White, among other things. “I wish I had the wherewithal to say it the way Chappell did. I think she’s brilliant. I think the people who are mad at her are idiots who simply don’t know what it’s like to not have an ounce of privacy anymore.”
She added, “But I’m off Twitter. F*ck Twitter. It can be a nasty place. I saw what it did to [Kit Connor]. I know what it did to me. I’ve seen women in particular be torn down my entire life. Jameela Jamil, why? Taylor Swift, why? Jennifer Lawrence, why? Anne Hathaway, why? Halle Bailey, why? And I know why, but the general public will never learn… now they’ve moved on to Chappell. F*ck them.”
Both Zegler and Connor have dealt with more than their fair share of negative internet commentary about their personal and professional lives, and they’ve watched friends undergo waves of harassment and rumors as well. “It makes me really angry because I don’t like people talking about things they don’t know,” Connor told Teen Vogue.
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