Internet criticizes Chappell Roan TikTok for unforgivable mispronunciation
By Meg Dowell
Singer Chappell Roan was recently quoted in an article saying she isn't endorsing a U.S. presidential candidate. A recent follow-up TikTok video is earning her backlash for a completely different reason.
In the TikTok video, she clarified that she would be voting for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris even if she wouldn't be endorsing her. Except she mispronounced the candidate's name, and many of her fans are not happy about it.
Kamala Harris's first name is pronounced "Kah-mah-lah" like "comma-la." But Chappell Roan -- and many others -- pronounce it "Kam-ah-lah" like "come-all-ah." Which is not the way her name is pronounced, and which many people find disrespectful.
One of the biggest criticisms of Chappell's error is that she has repeatedly corrected people on how to correctly pronounce her stage name ("shuh-pell-rown," not like "chapel"). Many find it hypocritical that she repeatedly corrects other people on name pronunciation but can't take the time to correctly pronounce the name of the Vice President of the United States.
But this is only one of the reasons her TikToik video is circulating the internet. She has had to clarify on multiple occassions that saying she wasn't endorsing one candidate over the other did not mean she wasn't voting for Harris or that she is encouraging her fans not to vote.
This is often what happens when social media accounts and media outlets pull interview quotes out of context for the sake of engagement. The meaning behind her original response was much clearer in the interview itself, but as it does, the internet ran with a pull quote and never looked back.
Roan appears quite upset in the above TikTok video, mostly due to the fact that she felt people were misinterpreting her meaning unfairly, forcing her to clarify more than once what she meant.