\u201cI looove to lie,\u201d sighs Rene\u00e9 Rapp happily,\u00a0sounding like a kid who has just discovered a new favourite toy. She\u2019s talking about using creative licence in her songs, and how she realised, while working on her second album, that she didn\u2019t have to stick to the truth of her own experience 100% of the time. But for a journalist, the admission \u2013 and her apparent glee about it \u2013 demands a\u00a0follow-up: has she lied at all in the last 40 minutes?<\/p>\n
I expect Rapp, 25, to wave away the question. Instead she pauses, seeming to give it real thought. \u201cHave I lied? You know, I don\u2019t think so,\u201d she eventually concludes.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m still not sure if I believe her, but that\u2019s part of the joy of Rene\u00e9 Rapp. Whether you\u2019re in her company or merely count yourself a fan, she gives the impression of being authentic, outspoken and honest, sometimes to her own detriment. But then, there\u2019s a moment \u2013 a glint in her eye, or an edge to her tone that tips it into deadpan \u2013 when you have to wonder: is she being for real?<\/p>\n
We\u2019re meeting at a cafe in King\u2019s Cross on one of the first hot days in June. Even at the discreet corner table, Rapp radiates star power \u2013 jewel-tone shirt dress, sweater draped around her shoulders just so, heeled black boots despite the sweltering heat \u2013 and that kind of implacable confidence that\u2019s both sexy and a bit scary. I don\u2019t think the waiting staff recognise her, but they nevertheless seem flustered, bungling her coffee order.<\/p>\n
In fact, Rapp is more friendly and approachable than suggested by her glamorous, pull-no-punches image and on-screen association with preppy queen bees. Her breakout role was Regina George in the Broadway musical Mean Girls, followed by a turn as initially closeted, privileged daddy\u2019s girl Leighton Murray in Mindy Kaling\u2019s sitcom The Sex Lives of College Girls<\/a>. (Queen bee Regina George would never labour to reassure a waiter, as Rapp does, that she was happy \u2013 nay, thrilled \u2013 with a hot coffee after having ordered a cold one.) Since then, Rapp has also made her name as a pop star. Her debut album, Snow Angel, released in 2023, received positive reviews for its assured, R&B-infused pop.<\/p>\n Clique bait \u2026 Rapp in Mean Girls. Photograph: Jojo Whilden<\/p>\n But Rapp\u2019s star really began to rise early last year with her press tour for the film adaptation of the Mean Girls musical. From blasting<\/a> the \u201casshole\u201d owner of a tour bus company, to praising<\/a> rapper (and collaborator) Megan Thee Stallion\u2019s ass as \u201cthe best\u201d she\u2019s ever seen, to admitting<\/a> to being ageist against millennial women, Rapp\u2019s interviews were candid to the point of chaotic. Instead of opprobrium, her apparently off-the-cuff comments were met with widespread approval online, boosting her profile and sparking a running joke about her apparent lack of a filter: when guest-starring on Saturday Night Live during that time, Rapp was jokingly sentenced to \u201c40 hours of court-ordered media training\u201d.<\/p>\n Rapp\u2019s reputation for being refreshingly unfiltered, compared with the carefully crafted statements commonly made by celebrities today, initially took her by surprise. \u201cIt\u2019s very weird, honestly, to be perceived that way, because I don\u2019t really think about it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true that Rapp does seem less guarded than many\u00a0celebrities of her age and experience, but at the same time, she doesn\u2019t court controversy or spout uninformed views.<\/p>\n When she set out to become a singer, Rapp continues, \u201cI never thought about how people would dissect even the way you speak\u201d. It\u2019s confusing that she\u2019s become known for her media appearances, she says. \u201cLike, wait, what would a normal response be? A fluffy, nonsense answer?\u201d I\u2019m afraid so, I say; but she\u2019s not awaiting\u00a0confirmation \u2013 she\u2019s already off, her intensity rising as she speaks. \u201cTo me, that would make me crazy\u00a0\u2013\u00a0if\u00a0I was a journalist, that would drive me fucking up the wall!\u201d (Yes, Rene\u00e9.) \u201cBecause I would be like, \u2018Hang\u00a0on, we\u2019re not even like having a conversation\u2019.\u201d Her eyes behind her blue-tinted aviators flash. \u201cThat\u00a0would make me insane.\u201d<\/p>\n But the expectation that Rapp will always speak her mind has raised the stakes ahead of her second album Bite Me, out next month. The six tracks made available before our conversation were mostly heartfelt love songs, showing off Rapp\u2019s powerful voice and confessional lyrics. But the tone was set by the Joan Jett-referencing lead single Leave Me Alone<\/a>, building on the public image of Rapp as a party-girl pop star who refuses to be tamed. \u201cSign a hundred NDAs, but I still say something,\u201d she drawls.<\/p>\n Full English \u2026 Rapp performing at Wembley Stadium in June. Photograph: David Fisher\/Shutterstock for Global<\/p>\n In the first major media appearance of her album promo campaign, with comedian Ziwe, Rapp confirmed she\u2019d still not received any media training before going on to discuss her 4.5-star rating on celebrity foot rating site WikiFeet (\u201cI\u2019m so angry, my friends have five!)\u201d, whether her great-grandparents owned slaves<\/a> (she suspects they did) and which she \u201cgave less of a fuck about: women\u2019s rights or gay rights\u201d. (Gay rights, for the record.) But I wonder if \u2013 refreshing though it may be \u2013 this no-holds-barred persona might sometimes work against Rapp, preventing her from being taken in earnest while seeding the idea that, in her company, anything goes. The day before our interview, Rapp held a Q&A for fans in London that was reportedly<\/a> derailed by a small group who appeared to have had too many of the Rene\u00e9-themed cocktails.<\/p>\n Rapp says now that she doesn\u2019t feel pressure to be consistently \u201ciconic\u201d or chill in her press appearances \u2013 but she doesn\u2019t deny that this Q&A didn\u2019t go to plan. Rapp had been looking forward to getting into her new album with fans who cared about the nerdy detail. Instead, she struggled to hear their questions over the disorderly minority. \u201cHonestly, it just made me sad.\u201d<\/p>\n The real sour note came afterwards, when she and Towa Bird \u2013 her British musician girlfriend \u2013 were rushed by fans while trying to get in a lift. I try to clarify exactly what happened, but Rapp seems unsure of the details herself. \u201cTo be honest, I kept my head down.\u201d<\/p>\n But she has no doubt about how it made her feel. \u201cPeople running after you, into a fucking elevator bank \u2013 it\u2019s such weird behaviour,\u201d Rapp says, outraged. \u201cI was so pissed, I was so upset. I was like: \u2018You don\u2019t get to chase my girlfriend and me \u2013 that\u2019s not fine\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, she sees it as part of the deal of being famous. \u201cI don\u2019t like to be disrespected, but I also understand that I\u2019ve signed up for this shit, to an extent.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Indeed Rapp\u2019s truest ambition was to be a pop star; she got into acting, she\u2019s said, as a means to an end. As a child growing up outside Charlotte, North Carolina, she wanted to be Beyonc\u00e9 \u2013 and to get out of her small, now Maga-voting town, Huntersville. \u201cI just didn\u2019t feel very comfortable there,\u201d she says, pointing to her\u00a0showbusiness aspirations and her emerging sexual\u00a0identity.<\/p>\n Well before she first came out (as bisexual, in 2022; she now identifies as a lesbian), Rapp was the only white girl within her friend group, she says. Her mother would tell her to never turn right out of their neighbourhood \u2013 it wasn\u2019t safe for her and her friends. \u201cEverybody has rifles, and if you look at them the wrong way, they will shoot you,\u201d Rapp recalls. Today, she says, \u201cthere\u2019re people who live in the neighbourhood that I grew up in, who don\u2019t speak to my parents because I\u2019m out.\u201d It doesn\u2019t bother Rapp or her family, she says with forceful disdain. \u201cI\u2019ve never asked for the approval of conservative white bigots \u2013 I\u2019m certainly not going to start now.\u201d<\/p>\n She is equally outspoken about Palestine: speaking at the GLAAD Media awards in April 2024, she called for an \u201cimmediate ceasefire and permanent ceasefire\u201d, and today has no qualms about denouncing \u201cthe genocide\u201d under way. When I ask if she\u2019s ever been advised not to comment, or to use different phrasing, Rapp doesn\u2019t say\u00a0she hasn\u2019t. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting, people would often mask\u00a0it as \u2018That verbiage may make people uncomfortable.\u2019 I\u00a0would argue that people being slaughtered makes me\u00a0uncomfortable and should in fact make you\u00a0uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n Rapp feels obliged to speak out not just because it\u2019s the right thing to do but, she says, because it\u2019s so much harder for non-white women. She admits she was shocked\u00a0when she first moved to New York in 2019, to join Mean Girls<\/a> on Broadway and discovered \u201cthat people are still conservative bigots there\u201d. Rapp starred in the show for about seven months before Covid brought it to a premature close.<\/p>\n School\u2019s out \u2026 The Sex Lives of College Girls. Photograph: ITV<\/p>\n Now living with Bird in a \u201cseemingly white-liberal-ass neighbourhood\u201d of Los Angeles, Rapp says there are \u201cextremists\u201d a few doors down, with signs in the windows warning \u201cWe\u2019re armed\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially with our current administration, it\u2019s just so in your face \u2013 the hate for people who could be considered \u2018other\u2019,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s just\u00a0direct hate, and it\u2019s so loud.\u201d<\/p>\n When I ask Rapp where she got the confidence to speak\u00a0her mind, she answers simply: \u201cI have phenomenal\u00a0parents.\u201d Her\u00a0father, Charles, and mother, Denise, instilled in Rapp and her brother the\u00a0importance of hard work and personal\u00a0accountability.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were just always like: \u2018Be accountable to yourself, to your friends, to people you don\u2019t know,\u2019\u201d she says. What Rapp took away was that \u201cthere\u2019s no shame in being wrong, necessarily\u201d; what mattered was being able to \u201clook in the mirror\u201d and hold your head up high.<\/p>\n