Irish singer Catherine Harding has alleged that a security guard “berated” her and her daughter following an encounter with pop star Chappell Roan in a Sao Paulo hotel.
The incident, which left Harding’s 11-year-old daughter “extremely shaken and cried a lot”, prompted a public outcry from Harding’s husband, former Premier League footballer Jorginho.
Jorginho, who plays for Flamengo, took to Instagram on Saturday to criticise Roan, claiming her security spoke “in an extremely aggressive manner” to his wife and daughter. He accused the singer of not appreciating her supporters, adding: “Without your fans, you would be nothing.”
In an Instagram post on Sunday, Ms Harding clarified that her daughter had not approached Roan, nor was she using her phone, after spotting the singer during breakfast.
Instead, she simply smiled as Roan walked past their table. “She literally didn’t do anything; she just looked at her and smiled. She came back and she actually said to me ‘Mum, I don’t know if it’s her.’ Because obviously she looked like, you know, with her costumes and everything, she looks a little bit different,” Ms Harding recounted.
Ms Harding stated that a security guard then approached them, speaking in an “aggressive tone” to “berate and scold” them while they were eating. “Even if she did send him or she didn’t send him, I don’t know, for me it felt like it really overstepped a boundary,” she said.
Chappell Roan, whose real name is Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, later responded to the allegations, asserting that neither Ms Harding nor her daughter had approached her, and crucially, that the security guard involved was not part of her personal detail. Speaking on her Instagram stories, the 28-year-old singer said: “I didn’t even see, I didn’t even see a woman and a child like… no-one came up to me, no one bothered me like I was just sitting at breakfast in my hotel. I think these people were staying at the hotel as well.”
She continued: “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. 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.”
Lying in bed during her video message, Roan added: “I do not hate people who are fans of my music. I do not hate children – that is crazy. I’m sorry to the mother and child that someone was assuming something, that you would do something, and that… if you felt uncomfortable, that makes me really sad. You did not deserve that.”
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Despite Roan’s denial, Ms Harding maintained that the security guard was not hotel staff but rather someone who “looks after artists” and was “with her”. She questioned the extent of a celebrity’s responsibility for the actions of those representing them.
“I don’t know if it was her personal security guard, but he was with her. So that is all I know,” she stated. “Did she send him to do it? Again, I don’t know. Look, I would like to hope not. At the same time, I think that you have a responsibility, when you are a celebrity, to make sure, I guess, that the people that work for you and that act on your behalf are acting on your behalf.”
Ms Harding, who has a daughter from a previous relationship with actor Jude Law, and Jorginho, who has two children from a previous marriage, share one child together. They had purchased tickets to Roan’s Sao Paulo show as a birthday gift for their daughter.
The chart-topping pop star, known for tracks such as Pink Pony Club and Good Luck, Babe!, and a recipient of multiple Brit Awards, has faced online criticism following the footballer’s post, including from Rio mayor Eduardo Cavaliere. This incident follows previous comments by the Grammy-winning singer in 2024, where she used TikTok to address “entitled” fans and the need for boundaries between celebrities and their admirers.
