Grammy-winning singer Chappell Roan has responded to accusations made by Brazilian-Italian soccer star Jorginho Frello that a security guard mistreated his 11-year-old stepdaughter after she recognized the singer at a hotel in Brazil over the weekend.
Frello said his wife and child were staying at the same hotel in São Paulo as Roan, who was in the country for the Lollapalooza Brazil music festival, when the alleged incident took place.
The soccer player accused the pop star’s security team of treating his 11-year-old daughter “in an extremely aggressive manner” that left her in tears.
But Roan claims that she “didn’t even see a woman and a child” and that the security guard in question is not part of her personal team.
Here’s everything you need to know about the alleged incident with Roan and Frello’s family.
Frello, a player for Flamengo widely known as Jorginho, said he went through “a very upsetting situation with my family earlier today” in an Instagram post on Saturday.
“During breakfast, the artist walked past their table. My daughter, like any child, recognized her, got excited and just wanted to make sure it was really her,” Frello said in a lengthy text posted on Instagram in Portuguese and English on Saturday.
The 11-year-old girl is the daughter of Frello’s wife Catherine Harding and British actor Jude Law.
He said the girl had simply “walked past the singer’s table, looked to confirm it was her, smiled, and went back to sit with her mum.”
“She didn’t say anything, didn’t ask for anything,” Frello continued, adding that a security guard then came over to his family’s table and spoke “in an extremely aggressive manner to both my wife and my daughter” and accused his daughter of disrespecting and harassing Roan.
Frello said his daughter was “so happy to see an artist she really admires, or used to admire” and that she had made a Roan-inspired sign to bring to Lollapalooza for the singer’s performance.
After the security guard allegedly threatened to file a complaint against his daughter and Harding to the hotel, Frello claims that his “11-year-old daughter was sitting there in tears.”
“It’s sad to see this kind of treatment coming from those who should understand the importance of fans. At the end of the day, they are the ones who build all of this,” Frello wrote. “I sincerely hope this serves as a moment of reflection. No one should have to go through this, especially not a child.”
Frello tagged Roan’s Instagram account, adding: “WITHOUT YOUR FANS, YOU WOULD BE NOTHING. AND TO THE FANS, SHE DOES NOT DESERVE YOUR AFFECTION.”
Following the family’s public accusations, Roan took to her Instagram stories, claiming that the security guard who approached Harding and her daughter was “not my personal security.”
“I didn’t even see a woman and a child. Like, I did not. No one came up to me, no one bothered me,” the Pink Pony Club singer said. “Like, I was just sitting at breakfast in my hotel. I think these people were staying at the hotel as well.
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“I did not ask the security guard to go up and talk to this mother and child. I did not.”
“They did not come up to me. They weren’t doing anything,” the 28-year-old singer added. “It’s unfair for security to just assume someone doesn’t have good intentions when they have no reason to believe, because there’s no action even taken.”
In another Instagram post, Roan wrote, “I do not hate people who are fans of my music. I do not hate children. Like, that is crazy.”
“I’m sorry to the mother and child that someone was assuming something.… If you felt uncomfortable, that makes me really sad. You did not deserve that.”
In response to Roan’s statement, Harding took to Instagram to speak about the situation involving her and her daughter.
“I know that Chappell has responded saying that it wasn’t her security and she didn’t do it,” Harding said to begin her video.
She said the security guard who approached her and her child was “not a security guard of the hotel.”
“He looks after artists so I don’t know if it was her personal security guard but he was with her so that is all I know. Did she send him to do it? Again, I don’t know. Look, I would like to hope not but at the same time, I think that you have a responsibility when you are a celebrity to make sure that the people that work for you and act on your behalf are acting on your behalf,” Harding said.
She questioned if the security guard would have approached them if “he didn’t have the authority to do so.”
“If he does, then obviously that’s a big problem because then he’s representing her in a way that she doesn’t want to be represented so I think that’s really important for her to notice and realize that’s not correct,” she continued.
“We were staying in the same hotel. We were at breakfast and we noticed a girl walked past with long red hair, very curly. And I said to my daughter, ‘Oh, do you think that’s Chappell Roan?’ and she looked and said, ‘Oh my God, Mom, do you think it’s her?’”
That’s when her daughter went to look outside, where she says Roan was sitting in the garden area. Harding claims that she and her daughter “were free to go into” the area where Roan was seated.
“The door was open so I went back to the table to sit and eat and my daughter walked through the door. She didn’t have her phone. She didn’t try to take a picture. She didn’t approach her. She literally didn’t do anything. She just looked at her and smiled and she came back and she actually said to me, ‘Mom, I don’t know if it’s her,’” Harding recalled.
Harding said Roan looks a “little bit different” without “her costumes.”
She said they continued their breakfast and that’s when she claimed they were approached by a security guard who had “a very aggressive tone.”
“For me, I really feel like it overstepped a boundary because he is quite intimidating. He is very large so for him to come over to a table with just a woman and her daughter eating breakfast to kind of like berate and scold us and say that he was going to complain and tell me that I should be teaching my daughter to be better and that she’s badly educated and we should respect people’s privacy and we should not harass people and all of these other things,” Harding said.
She claimed that she tried to explain to the security guard that her daughter is “just a child” and she was “very excited to see” Roan.
“I explained to him also that my husband is also very well known and she’s very used to being around people that are well known and that she would never cross someone’s boundaries or overstep a mark. She very much knows the limits,” Harding said.
Harding said the security guard responded, “Well if that’s the case, then you should know better. You should know how it is.”
Harding suggested that if Roan doesn’t want people to look at her, then she should have eaten breakfast in her room because she was dining in a public area.
“I am a paying guest, as well as her. So if I want to walk past someone’s table and look at them, I have every right to do so. I’m not approaching her. I’m not doing anything to make her feel intimidated,” she added.
She also said they travelled all the way to São Paulo to see Roan perform and it was her daughter’s birthday present.
“It was a little bit ruined because we didn’t go to the show last night,” Harding said, adding that she will “say no more” on the situation.
Rio de Janeiro’s new mayor, Eduardo Cavaliere, weighed in on the controversy late on Saturday, saying that while he was mayor, Roan would never perform at Todo Mundo no Rio, a series of free international music events, on Copacabana Beach as Madonna and Lady Gaga have, and as Shakira will do in May.
“I mean that as long as I’m in charge of our city — this young lady @ChappellRoan will never perform at Todo Mundo no Rio! I doubt that Shakira would do that!” he wrote on X, adding that Frello’s daughter would be a guest of honour at Shakira’s upcoming free concert. Cavaliere replaced former Rio mayor Eduardo Paes on Friday.
Roan has been very vocal about setting boundaries with fans and media.
“When I’m on stage, when I’m performing, when I’m in drag, when I’m at a work event, when I’m doing press…I am at work. Any other circumstance, I am not in work mode. I am clocked out,” she wrote in a 2024 Instagram post.
“I don’t agree with the notion that I owe a mutual exchange of energy, time, or attention to people I do not know, do not trust, or who creep me out—just because they’re expressing admiration. Women do not owe you a reason why they don’t want to be touched or talked to. This has nothing to do with gratitude and love I feel for my community, for the people who respect my boundaries, and for the love I feel from every person who lifts me.”
She said she was “specifically talking about predatory behavior (disguised as ‘superfan’ behavior) that has become normalized because of the way women who are well-known have been treated in the past.”
“Please do not assume you know a lot about someone’s life, personality, and boundaries because you are familiar with them or their work online,” she wrote.
— with files from The Associated Press
