“I'm used to people bringing my name into a conversation because they want to be brought up in a conversation,” declares Reneé Rapp, gazing directly at me over the top of her Miu Miu glasses. In the past week, the 25-year-old singer-songwriter and actor has made headlines after Australian singer Betty Who remarked that she would “hold space” for Rapp if she ended up with a man ten years down the line. Rapp would like to make one thing crystal clear: that will never, ever happen. “The hot takes are getting kind of crazy,” she smiles. “I'm not ending up with a man. Like, let's just chill.”
Draped across a chair at the London headquarters of Universal Music, tossing her blonde waves this way and that, there’s no doubt that Rapp really is that girl. A hard-working theatre kid from North Carolina, she first stole the limelight as Regina George in the Broadway adaptation of Mean Girls in 2019, before landing a breakout role on Mindy Kaling’s HBO sitcom The Sex Lives of College Girls. Meanwhile, she set her music career in motion with her debut album Snow Angel in 2023, serving up big feelings with her signature, soaring vocals. A year later, she reprised her role as leader of The Plastics in a movie musical remake of Mean Girls, scoring a chart-topping hit with “Not My Fault” featuring Megan Thee Stallion.
Now, the next stage of stardom is calling. In August, she landed her first ever UK number one album with her sophomore album, Bite Me, ushering in a new era of queer pop supremacy. And Rapp, who came out as a “little lesbian intern” on Saturday Night Live in January 2024, has officially graduated to sapphic icon, further fuelled by her relationship with guitar-shredding musician Towa Bird. Make no mistake, she’s working overtime to celebrate her sexuality. “Don’t handle me with care,” she belts on “Shy”. “When you’re pullin’ my hair, baby, ruin my life”.
In fact, Rapp’s totally in control of her narrative. And, as she prepares to hit the road with the Bite Me tour, she’s ready to have fun. “I care about how the music makes me feel, and I care about how the music makes other people feel,” she says firmly. “Those are the two things that actually move me and matter”.
You’ve said that Bite Me is “a time capsule” of the last two to three years of your life – the good, the bad and the ugly. Could you break that down for me?
I set out to make something really messy and intense and jagged and not a perfect, polished version of my life and my choices. I was trying to make something that thematically felt very true, and I did exactly that. It is the most intense points of my life over the last two to three years - parts that have been amazing, and parts that have been not so amazing. And ultimately, I don't care. It’s true to its title. If I wanted to make an album that was, like, “this is the best version of me,” then I would have done that, but I didn't.
There’s a lot of commentary online about you being unapologetic, authentic, unfiltered…
Oh my God, you cannot find my name without one of those words associated! It is kind of confusing to me, to be quite honest. I just never thought of myself that way. I'm putting music out there. I'm not inviting everyone into my personal life, whether they think that I am or not, or whether they feel entitled to that or not. So ultimately, people don't really know me past what they think they know about me because of my music and because of my public facing persona, and what I decide to put out there and what I decide to say.
You're not offering the entirety of yourself up for public consumption.
It's never been that, and it will never be that
One thing that stands out on the album though is your love for your girlfriend, Towa, who you met just after you’d got out of another relationship.
We'd been friends for a minute, and I was on tour with our best friend, and her, and all of our bands, going through a breakup. And going through a breakup on tour is not for the faint of heart. Oh my fucking God; I think back to that now. I'm like, I can't even put myself mentally back in that place. I'm not really sure how I was like, “I'm gonna play shows tonight amidst everything that's happening”.
I’ve definitely had break-ups so brutal that I didn’t know how I was going to make it into the work the next day.
Yeah, it’s so interesting. I saw a picture of myself from that specific period in time, which I guess now is a little bit over two years ago, and I look at myself and I'm like, “Oh my God, there's nothing behind my eyes”. It happens; everybody goes through an intense breakup, but I look back on it and it's a bit scary. I don't understand how that person was able to get on stage every night and play shows. But I guess ultimately, that that's my job, so of course I did.
How does your love with Towa differ from what you’ve experienced in previous relationships?
I think the most important thing, or maybe the most overarching factor, is she just can't be compared to anyone else. Our relationship can't be compared to anyone else. I feel like I've never been in a relationship before I was with her. Like, she's just one of one. You can't even put her in conversation with another one of my exes because it just doesn't even come close. She's just magnificent. Everything about her is so special, and she's such an amazing person and is such an incredible partner that I can't even really say what's different, because she's just different. There's that saying, you can't compete where you don't compare. So no-one can compete with her because she’s in her own lane.
Towa is British Filipino, and you're American by way of North Carolina. Have you learned anything from her about British queer culture?
I feel like pretty much everything I know about the UK has to do with her, and I have such a deep love for it here, because she has really shown me a lot of camaraderie and community, in London specifically. And also, another one of my best friends is from here, and for some reason, the Brits have just kind of integrated themselves into my life. So I love being here. To be honest, I feel very like at home when I'm here.
I know a lot of fans view you as an honorary Brit…
Honestly, it feels like the highest praise!
I wanted to ask you about the prominence of lesbianism in your music. How important is it to you to be explicit about your sexuality?
It’s incredibly important, because it translates everywhere. It doesn't just make a difference in music, it makes a difference culturally. But it's important to me in a way that I'm not even thinking about most of the time, because it's just my life. So when I write about my lesbian sexuality, I'm just writing about my sex life. Everything I touch, everything I look at and am around, every space that I go into, is inherently queer, because I'm there and my friends are there, so I'm not even making an effort to do it anymore. I used to make a really concerted effort. But now, I've built this life for myself, and I’m lucky to have people around me that do the same. That is just so queer; that's just how I live.
Even though you identify as a lesbian, and you’re always reminding people of that fact, your name recently came up on a podcast where an artist suggested you might revert to a straight relationship. Were you surprised to hear your name brought up in conversation?
No, I'm never surprised. People are always going for lesbians! Somebody's gonna bring my name into the conversation if they want to be in the conversation. So no, it doesn't surprise me at all.
It's crazy to me because you have said so many times that you're a proud lesbian woman.
I mean, it's just very similar to the whole, “she hasn't found the right man”. It's incredibly similar, let's be so clear. I’m just like, “What the fuck? What makes you think I'm gonna end up with a man?” Also, how about don't talk about me when it comes to a man? I'm very publicly in a very loving relationship with a woman. So I'm not really sure what about that is so blurry. I mean, I completely understand that identifying yourself can be really difficult. There is so much pressure when it comes to labelling yourself, but I think that pressure often comes from you. Like, no-one ever had a gun to my head and was like, “tell me what you are, right the fuck now”. I had a gun to my own head and I was like, “tell me what you are, right the fuck now”, because I was trying to figure it out, because I didn't know who I was. So I'm always confused whenever people try to do that to other people. Just focus on yourself. Just literally focus on yourself. Don't bring my big fucking lesbian name into your mouth and into this drama.
You've got the Bite Me tour up ahead. What are you most looking forward to?
I'm looking forward to enjoying it! When I toured the first year, I was going through a really difficult time in my life. I just remember trudging along on stage, and I felt like I was moving through Jell-O because I was so sad. But I was like, “people have paid to be here, and I equally want to give them an amazing performance, but I'm so not in my body, and I see they're having fun, and that makes me happy, but I'm not having fun”. I don't really feel like I experienced much of it, because I was so not present. So I'm excited to tour in a better place in my life, because I think that I'll actually be able to experience and enjoy it, as opposed to fighting so hard just to wake up and do it. I think that'll be the biggest difference.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Styled by Jessica Neises. Hair by Marissa Marino. Makeup by Loren Canby. Shot on location at Gary’s Loft. Special thanks to Brooklinen for bedding.
Video loops: Sarah Ng, Sarah Kiley Morse, and Anabella Ronson-Benenati.
VP of video: Jason Ikeler. Director of video: Amanda Kabbabe. Senior producer/guy in tux: Brian Murray-Real. Producer: Alissa Godwin. DP: Alvah Holmes. Senior editor: Jeff Sharkey. Cinematographers: Derrick Woodyard and Alex Scully.
