Emily Fritz | a&e editor

American singer Chappell Roan has been under fire since her Aug. 19 TikTok calling the parasocial — and often predatory — relationship between artists and fans “crazy” and “weird.”

Many are disgruntled with Roan’s remarks, saying that her experiences with people approaching her and demanding her time and attention comes with the territory of being famous. On Aug. 23 she took to Instagram, explaining how her public persona deviates from her private life.

“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,” Roan wrote. “I feel more love than I ever have in my life. I feel the most unsafe I have ever felt in my life.”

Despite being in the public eye, it is important that we practice respect for the private lives of popular figures. In addition to maintaining the boundaries of individual consent, we must place emphasis on medical history, nudity, sexual orientation and gender identity. To do so protects our personal privacy and prevents us from becoming inhumane toward one another.

Social activist Matt Bernstein pointed to celebrities in recent history who’ve fallen victim to exploitation in the media and by fans.

“Around 2021, many people correctly identified that our treatment of Britney Spears in the early aughts was wrong,” he wrote via Instagram on Aug. 24. “When is a good time to recognize the humanity of a famous woman? Is it after [she’s] dead? Is it after she’s had her pain commodified in a Hulu documentary?”

While medical privacy laws do not come directly into play in cases like Priyanka Chopra’s or Kate Middleton’s, both women were at the mercy of the masses when disclosing their health journeys — Chopra for the use of a surrogate when welcoming her first child with Nick Jonas in January 2023 and Middleton for staying out of the public eye while battling a cancer diagnosis.

Upon announcing that Chopra and Jonas had used a surrogate, some users took to social media to accuse her of “renting a womb” for reasons of vanity or pain avoidance. Later, the actress confirmed that the surrogacy was medically necessary.

“Just because I don’t want to make my medical history, or my daughter’s, public doesn’t give [people] the right to make up whatever the reasons were,” she said.

This harmful speculation extended to the Princess of Wales, who had taken a recess from public appearances. Conspiracies ranged from a bad haircut to a cheating scandal. It wasn’t until March 2024 that the British royal returned to social media to confirm that she had been battling serious health complications — which hardly stopped the incessant buzz around her personal life.

Aside from plights of health and medical history, celebrities are being accused of “queerbaiting,” or purposeful ambiguity around a character or actor’s sexuality in order to appeal to LGBTQ+ viewers or fans.

Following the popular Netflix show, “Heartstopper” star Kit Connor was accused of queerbaiting because he had been seen with a girl his age after playing a gay character on screen. In October 2022, Connor took to social media to dispel rumors.

“I’m bi. Congrats for forcing an 18-year-old to out himself. I think some of you missed the point of the show. Bye,” he tweeted.

Later, Connor said that he was disappointed in fans’ scrutiny and “would have preferred to do it another way,” according to British Vogue.

Coming out is a deeply personal choice for any member of the LGBTQ+ community. Feeling obligated or forced to reveal one’s sexuality or gender identity can be especially dangerous in a polarized world.

Reaping details from another person’s personal life can take many forms, including the creation of fictional images.

In January 2024, international pop star Taylor Swift was victim of AI-generated nude images which were circulated via the internet earlier this year without her consent. These violating pictures were so prevalent on the social platform X, that the social media giant had to limit searches pertaining to the entertainer.

For Swift and her dedicated fan base, the situation could be mitigated. For a person without her popularity or public support network, explicit AI-generated images — regardless of whether they are born from real photographs or not — are virtually impossible to defend against.

“When everyone with a computer can create a convincing and harmful image, anyone from high school teens to the world’s biggest pop star could fall victim to these potentially damaging deep fakes,” Axios wrote in February 2024.

If the intimate lives of public figures can be so easily violated then there is little stopping those same malicious actors from violating ours. Privacy means nothing for the average person if it means nothing for those we idolize.