{"id":177442,"date":"2025-09-29T10:24:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T10:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/177442\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T10:24:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T10:24:10","slug":"renee-rapp-tina-fey-said-whats-wrong-with-you-youre-insane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/177442\/","title":{"rendered":"Rene\u00e9 Rapp: \u2018Tina Fey said, \u2018What\u2019s wrong with you? You\u2019re insane\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The American pop-rock star Rene\u00e9 Rapp<\/a> recently earned a UK No 1 with her spunky, defiant second album, Bite Me<\/a>. It was an achievement that pleased her, even if it didn\u2019t quite thrill her. Her old team used to be \u201cvery American, very grandiose\u201d in that way, she says, doing a lightly hysterical, nasal impression of them from a chair in Universal\u2019s London HQ: \u201c\u2018You\u2019ve worked so hard and this is everything and oh my God and oh my God and if your younger self could see\u2026\u2019\u201d The 25-year-old slaps her thighs as she replies back to them: \u201cWe gotta pack it up. I\u2019m not curing cancer.\u201d It\u2019s better to be neutral about achievements anyway, she\u2019s realised. \u201cThose [successes] will never feel as high as making a record and I used to think that they would and they do not, and that\u2019s OK.\u201d To conclude: \u201cI was\u2026 pleased with it being No 1.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a measured approach to winning from such a resolute character, a vivacious musician whose music is equal parts big belting vocals, jazz hands energy and messy gay relationship themes. One whose star began to rise years before her 2023 debut album with a role as Regina George, ultimate sovereign of the school cafeteria, in Mean Girls<\/a> on Broadway, a part that earned Rapp a Queen Bee reputation that often precedes her. Between 2021 and 2024, Rapp also starred in HBO Max\u2019s queer teen drama The Sex Lives of College Girls<\/a>, a show I admit I haven\u2019t seen, and I suspect she won\u2019t mind, given the rumours that for her it was more miserable to make than it ever could be to watch. \u201cGirl, neither have I,\u201d she says flatly. \u201cThere\u2019s no need for you to watch it. Let me f***ing tell you right now. You are fine. You are not missing anything.\u201d <\/p>\n

Maybe that was obvious from \u201cLeave Me Alone\u201d, the opening track and lead single on Bite Me: \u201cTook my sex life with me now the show ain\u2019t f***in\u2019!\u201d she quips over equally bratty production.<\/p>\n

Though she started as a classic theatre girl triple threat, a pop career is her total focus now. Watching me through Miu Miu frameless glasses, she radiates a curated ease: feline face, pillowy lips, that all-natural tan that reads Australian (though she\u2019s from North Carolina). Even her teeth and eyes seem edited, luminescently white. I expected her to be extremely high energy considering the type of animated pop star she is: Rene\u00e9 Rapp was built for short-form content, for talk shows, a niche internet celeb story. Over the past month or so, there has been \u201cRene\u00e9 Rapp is considering buying one of Queen Victoria\u2019s former homes\u201d; \u201cBenson Boone and Rene\u00e9 Rapp beefing over backflips is the unserious drama I needed today\u201d; \u201cRene\u00e9 Rapp called white gays \u2018insufferable\u2019, including herself\u201d; \u201cRene\u00e9 Rapp opens up about cheating on her ex on the Call Her Daddy<\/a> podcast\u201d and more, much more. <\/p>\n

But she\u2019s not high energy today. Rapp knows she\u2019s seen as a zany in-your-face person, but that\u2019s because of the meme-friendly content formats she\u2019s placed into, she says: \u201cI come across that way because I actually will just play so far into whatever vibe that I\u2019m in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The possibility that she has become an internet persona rather than a pop star has occurred to her. She has already done a whole press tour for Bite Me and I read and watched it all, including a 50-minute Zane Lowe interview about her new album, and left knowing nothing about the album. So, what\u2019s the deal? Has she become too fun to talk to? \u201cI think journalism has changed so much in that way \u2013 I\u2019m sure I\u2019m preaching to the choir \u2013 everything is on the internet and everything is for the internet now,\u201d she says, which in a way can make things more playful. \u201cI also think in a way it\u2019s a bit stifling.\u201d How her personality is perceived was something she never thought about until recently. \u201cNow it\u2019s become, \u2018Oh, she\u2019s unfiltered or controversial or is gonna say something that people will engage with online or she\u2019s a b**** or ungrateful.\u2019 I don\u2019t know why. I think that\u2019s something that\u2019s worked for a couple of news outlets and now that\u2019s what everybody\u2019s drawn to\u2026 in America. I don\u2019t feel that way as much here.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Rene\u00e9<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Rene\u00e9 Rapp was built for short-form content, for talk shows (Invision\/AP)<\/p>\n

She noticed that participating with UK radio hosts felt more like a normal exchange to promote her work, rather than an opportunity to boost someone else\u2019s profile: \u201cHe doesn\u2019t want something out of the conversation that is for him,\u201d she says of one recent such radio host on this current UK trip. \u201cI\u2019ve gotten pretty good at being able to tell that in interviews.\u201d <\/p>\n

This press trend has made bigger jesters of women than men, she thinks: \u201cIt is interesting that [with] every female artist that I can think about right now, the conversation is rarely about their music, it\u2019s always something baity for the internet. And with me it especially has been.\u201d <\/p>\n

What has been lost, perhaps, in the clips of Rapp as jester, is her single-minded focus, which no doubt came from a childhood being raised by a medical salesman dad and an accountant mother, who now acts as her business manager. She was so much of a musical theatre prodigy that she won \u201cBest Performance by an Actress\u201d at the 10th annual Jimmy Awards in NYC, a national awards show for high school musical theatre students. The actor who presented Rapp with the award, Laura Benanti, did so with the message, \u201cI will never be as confident as that 18-year-old.\u201d <\/p>\n

While that same 18-year-old Rapp was auditioning for the Mean Girls musical, she was already fervently pursuing a pop career in New York. When she got a personal call-back for the national tour of Mean Girls by creator Tina Fey<\/a>, Rapp knew being in the national tour didn\u2019t match up to her vaulting ambition, but thought, \u201cYeah, I\u2019m gonna go sing my f***ing ass off in front of Tina. I\u2019m gonna meet this b****. I respect her. She\u2019s one of the greatest people in comedy.\u201d She was offered the role of Regina George but turned it down. Fey was incredulous, Rapp remembers: \u201cShe was like, \u2018What the f***? What is wrong with you? You\u2019re insane. We\u2019re offering you the lead on a national tour of a show that is one of the biggest IPs in the world.\u2019\u201d Rapp\u2019s logic was clear: \u201cI want to be a pop star. So I\u2019m not gonna go around the f***ing US for a year. I don\u2019t want to perform in Iowa. Who\u2019s gonna help me with my music career in Iowa? Nobody.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fey and producer Lorne Michaels, the creator of Saturday Night Live, then offered her the Broadway show so she could remain in New York and she said she\u2019d consider it \u2013 with a caveat. That they\u2019d market Rapp as a pop star and use the musical as a launch pad for her music career. \u201cI think it was probably jarring because it\u2019s like, what the f*** do you have going for you that you could say no? The truth is nothing, except the confidence and assuredness in myself that I was going to f***ing do what I was going to do,\u201d Rapp remembers. Baffling or endearing, her bullishness worked. Fey and Michaels have continued to be two of her \u201cbiggest cheerleaders\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"Rene\u00e9<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Rene\u00e9 Rapp\u2019s \u2018Bite Me\u2019 album cover (Interscope)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe militant nature of doing the show on Broadway prepared me to do anything,\u201d she adds. Rapp has spoken in the past about having an eating disorder and mood disorder. Many of her shows have been performed in the face of those trials, including every festival that she did last year, she says: \u201cI was wickedly depressed and severely unhappy and physically sick \u2013 and I still did every show.\u201d <\/p>\n

I was introduced to Rapp in early 2023 for her first London show at Kentish Town Forum. The music wasn\u2019t too memorable but she was: enormously charismatic, big belting numbers and relentless gags between songs. As far as the largely queer female audience was concerned, she was Harry Styles. She perks up at me remembering this, pleasantly surprised that I was there for that milestone moment: \u201c\u2018New pop girl\u2019 is the scariest phrase to hear in the whole wide world, I\u2019m sure, for a journalist,\u201d she says, joking about the way she\u2019d inevitably been billed by her team. \u201cYou\u2019re probably just like, \u2018Oh, for f***\u2019s sake, another one. What is this gonna be?\u2019\u201d I tell her that I recall being unsure of where her sound would land, still in its amorphous initial stages of sonics and style. \u201cI felt that way too,\u201d she admits. \u201cIt could have gone so many different ways and of course there\u2019s always room for it to.\u201d <\/p>\n

But she found her distinctive voice on Bite Me: caustic, arrogant, delighted, like Regina George turned up to 11. Rapp had been through a turbulent few years in her early adulthood: navigating being a proper public figure, \u201cstaying in relationships that didn\u2019t serve me\u201d, legal disputes, NDAs, partying and blacking out, trying to prove herself as a pop contender. \u201cI had had it up to here,\u201d she says, jutting her hand under her neck. \u201c\u2018I\u2019m sick of y\u2019all, I\u2019m sick of y\u2019all. And I\u2019m sick of my f***ing self.\u2019 I felt like I needed to strip naked, get all of my clothes off and run. And I had no idea where I was going but I knew that I was not going back.\u201d That energy, she felt, was contained by the phrase \u201cBite Me\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted the album to be everything that fit that title,\u201d she continues. \u201cI wanted it to be everything thematically that was biting, bitchy, get the f*** out of my face.\u201d She throws a spider hand up in my direction dramatically. \u201cI didn\u2019t know sonically what it was going to be but I knew exactly what the attitude was.\u201d <\/p>\n

The song to shape the record was \u201cLeave Me Alone\u201d, which came a difficult six months into writing. Rapp\u2019s team kept calling to ask when the next song was coming out. \u201cI was like, \u2018Get the f*** out of my face. I\u2019m trying to have fun with my life, I\u2019m trying to go out with my friends, I\u2019m in a new relationship and madly in love with my partner, I bought a f***ing house. Everyone get away from me, let me have f***ing fun.\u201d One of her songwriters, Steph Jones (a co-writer on Sabrina Carpenter\u2019s \u201cEspresso\u201d), told her to just put that message into a ballsy track. \u201cI was worried about what people would say. And she was like, \u2018Right but that\u2019s how you talk as a person so why do you care?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

Was she worried about what her team would think, though, on the harsh receiving end of this song? \u201cNo, I don\u2019t give a f*** about that. Them, I don\u2019t care about.\u201d Because she had just made a new track, exactly what they\u2019d wanted? \u201cOnce my personality started to come through the music, everybody was in. And then I was in too,\u201d she says resolutely. And since she was listening to a lot of pop-rock girl duo The Veronicas, the rest of the music either sounds like Demi Lovato-era Disney rock about being a sadistic lesbian trying to get back at her ex (\u201cYou\u2019d Like That Wouldn\u2019t You\u201d) or euphoric pop songs about being well-behaved before she fell in lust with someone (\u201cGood Girl\u201d). <\/p>\n

\"Ren\u00e9e<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9e Rapp with Towa Bird (left) (Doug Peters\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n

The album is a little black book of lovers and exes, all unnamed. Did any of these people get in angrily touch with her? The songs cleverly blend details from different relationships, she says. But still: \u201cI can imagine that people would assume that my songs are fully about them. I\u2019m like, \u2018Girl, this isn\u2019t about you. This is about my album rollout. Let\u2019s be so clear. With all the love in the world, this s*** is not about you.\u2019\u201d With hand claps, with a light eye roll. <\/p>\n

A passing thought of her girlfriend, the musician Towa Bird, brings a smile to Rapp\u2019s face. \u201cI would imagine dating me is kind of hard,\u201d she says, adding that dating a songwriter is hard full-stop. But wait, she realises, rising up on her chair in protest, she is also dating a songwriter. It is hard! \u201cYou get songs written about you and all the intimate details of your life!\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a full-blown cabaret to have a romantic relationship safely in the public eye, Rapp admits. \u201cThere\u2019s a skill to making people think that you\u2019re giving away a lot when in reality you\u2019re giving away the smallest bit. People think they know a lot about my relationship, but in reality, myself and my girlfriend are very private people and I\u2019m really good at making it seem like we\u2019re not because I will protect her in every way that I can,\u201d she says. That\u2019s when I realise she\u2019s talking about herself too: for the past hour, Rapp\u2019s been part magician, part showgirl, making a wonderful spectacle out of giving little away. She\u2019s a bona fide professional. Of course: the show must go on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-177442","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}