Ada, Caroline and her husband, the former Chelsea and Arsenal player footballer Jorginho, were staying at the same hotel as Chappell, to attend her headline performance at the Lollapalooza Brazil music festival in Sao Paulo when Ada spotted Chappell walk past their table. According to her step-dad Jorginho, who shared a lengthy Instagram statement at the weekend that has since gone viral, Ada did absolutely nothing wrong.
“My daughter, like any child, recognised her, got excited, and just wanted to make sure it was really her,” he explained.
“And the worst part is she didn’t even approach her. She 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.”
What happened next was – he claims – “completely disproportionate”. “A large security guard came over to their table while they were still having breakfast and began speaking in an extremely aggressive manner to both my wife and my daughter, saying that she shouldn’t allow my daughter to ‘disrespect’ or ‘harass’ other people.”
Jorginho went on to say that it left Ada in tears. He concluded his Instagram rant, which wins second place only to Brooklyn Beckham’s one about his performative family, with a lecture on the “importance of fans” in caps: “WITHOUT YOUR FANS, YOU WOULD BE NOTHING. AND TO THE FANS, SHE DOES NOT DESERVE YOUR AFFECTION.”
In a now deleted Instagram post, Chappell said: “I just woke up. I deserve my space, especially in moments like breakfast. I don’t play about my breakfast.”
And the truth is she’s quite right – and should stick to her guns.
Yet after the backlash she’s received, Chappell has since apologised in a video on her Instagram Stories insisting she did not ask a security guard to approach the child. She also said “I am sorry to the mother and child” as she didn’t see them do anything, adding: “I do not hate children”.
Okay, what Ada allegedly did is hardly stalking, and no cameras or phones were involved – which is impressively restrained for a young fan. But of course, celebrities like Chappell deserve space from fans especially at breakfast – and it’s good parenting to let kids know they can’t just do everything they want all the time.
There is nothing is wrong with Chappell not wanting a young child starring at her close up like she’s a Madame Tussauds wax work at breakfast. If my children, Lola, ten and Liberty, seven, saw Taylor Swift on the next table, I’d have to wrestle them to the floor to enforce respectful boundaries. But I would do whatever it took to allow a celebrity to eat their breakfast in peace.
The “Pink Pony Club” and “Hot To Go!” singer was possibly eating waffles with peanut butter (reportedly one of her comfort foods) and for a moment wanted to just be Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, the 26-year-old from a small town in Willard, Missouri, rather than her stage persona Chappell Roan.
The onslaught of criticism for Chappell with parents out to destroy her is now what is completely disproportionate
Ada’s mother Caroline rubbed it in. She posted an excited video of Ada after seeing Sabrina Carpenter in concert at the festival the day before – and captioned the post: “Our daughter decided she didn’t want to go to the show [Chappell’s} tonight after how we were treated… so instead we had a girls day shopping and then out to dinner.” She added: ‘Thank you everyone for the kind messages, all is well!” as if they had been through hell and back.
She posted another photo of her and her daughter, smiling next to the singer Lewis Capaldi who had also been performing at Lollapalooza Brazil, with Lewis giving a thumbs up to the camera, writing: “Thanks for your kindness.”
Eduardo Cavaliere, Rio de Janeiro’s mayor, has since banned Chappell from performing in the town ever again. And to make matters worse, Caroline has not accepted Chappell’s denials, proclaiming that she hopes the singer “learns a lesson”. Wow.
“[My daughter] didn’t have her phone, she didn’t try to take a picture, she didn’t do anything, she just looked at [Chappell] and smiled.” Caroline also says that she explained to the security guard that her daughter, who has a famous father and step-dad, understood acceptable “boundaries” for those in the public eye, but apparently the security guard ignored her.
But please. Can we stop throwing Chappell under the bus and start thinking about how she might have a life beyond YouTube videos. Chappell has been open with her fans about how feels uncomfortable about having her privacy invaded. In August 2024, around the time of her sudden fame, she posted a video to TikTok where she said: “It’s weird how people think that you know a person because you see them online and you listen to the art they make … I’m allowed to say no to creepy behaviour, okay?”
Yes, having fans sell records and makes money – but that doesn’t mean artists have to be made to feel so eternally grateful to fans that they lose all sense of self. Breakfast is also the worse time of the day to be gawped at because you’ve just got up. I’m not surprised her patience was tested to find a fan staring at her while she ate.
It’s not Ada’s fault, of course, but her parents’, who could think twice about their parenting skills. Considering they are in the spotlight themselves, they should know better than anybody else how it feels to have one’s space invaded. Yes it is innocent adoration, but for Chappell, it’s likely just another slice of her privacy that everyone shrugs away as the price of fame.
