Reneé Rapp: Media training is boring, I can't give fluffy answers

Reneé Rapp scored a worldwide hit last year with the song Not My Fault

"Would you like me to source you a paper towel?"

Less than two minutes into an interview with Reneé Rapp – pop star, film star, Broadway actress, media sensation – and I have spilled an entire bottle of water onto the table.

Luckily, as a father of two, I carry a permanent supply of tissues (and plasters and sun cream and antiseptic) everywhere I go. Within seconds, the mess is mopped up.

"You literally have tissues with you? I'm so impressed," Rapp squeals... Before admitting her parents are basically the same.

"My dad brings hair bands everywhere because I'm always without a hair tie," says the 25-year-old. "So I know I'm going to be an insufferable parent.

"I'll be saying, 'please let me brush your teeth', and the kid's going to be, like, 17."

Rapp's "speak first, think later" interviews went viral on YouTube last year

We meet in London's King's Cross, near Rapp's record label offices. She's a little frazzled after two days of live shows; and somewhat sleep deprived, thanks to a group of kids who have been running races in the corridor outside her hotel room.

Yet she's friendly and engaging, full of zingy quotes that confirm her reputation as pop's most unfiltered star.

That's a label she acquired while promoting last year's Mean Girls film. Rapp played central villainess Regina George, reprising a role she originated on Broadway, and spent the press tour gleefully going off script.

She tore into the owner of a bus company whose boss had been an "asshole" to her mum, declaring, "I can't stand you and I hope your business burns"; and praised co-star Megan Thee Stallion for having "the best ass I've ever seen in my life".

Elsewhere, she confessed to being "very publicly ageist" and said her only male crush was Justin Bieber, because he "looks like a lesbian".

YouTube is full of compilations with titles such as: "Reneé Rapp making her PR team question their life choices for 5 minutes straight".

The singer knows what media training looks like, she just doesn't vibe with it.

"I got on a phone call years ago where they were telling us how to answer certain kinds of question, and what not to say," she recalls, "and I just remember being like, 'This feels so boring to me'.

"I think it's a skill to be able to give a thought-out, fluffy answer. It's just not something that I want."

"Good interviews, to me, are like a conversation that illustrates how you get on with the other person... or you don't. And that's fun. That's something I want to watch."

When she first discovered her interviews were attracting attention, however, it caught her off guard.

"Everybody on my team was like, 'Oh, there's a trend going on where you just say whatever [comes into your head].

"It was confusing because, to me, I didn't really understand what I was doing, other than speaking exactly how I've always spoken since I was a kid.

"And I actually got insecure about it a bit last year - because I never imagined my personality and the cadence of my speech would be analysed."

Eventually, Rapp summoned the courage to watch some of those YouTube compilations, "and I was like, OK, this is kind of funny".

"I just realised that I couldn't stop it or tone it down. So I just ran with it."

She even pokes fun at the situation on her recent single Leave Me Alone.

"Signed a hundred NDAs but I still say something," she snarls with punky brio over an punchy, Oh Mickey drumbeat.

'Get off my back'

Leave Me Alone is a witty response to the people who've tried to sand off Rapp's rough edges. But it was born of real frustration.

Last March, she had just wrapped up a European tour, at the same time as the Mean Girls single Not My Fault gave her the biggest hit of her career so far. Suddenly, she was under pressure to follow it up.

"I was told that, basically, everybody wanted me to put a single out in the summer and an album in the fall," she says.

"I started panicking. I was like, 'Holy crap, how am I gonna do that?', because I was really, really, really depressed last year. I was so overworked, and I was so run down. I didn't have any time to get myself together.

"I was crying to my girlfriend about it, like, 'I have no idea how I'm going to do this'. And she was literally like, 'You don't have to, and, by the way, you shouldn't'."

Rapp agreed with the advice but went to work regardless, a by-product of career insecurity and a need for approval.

"I was like, 'This is what somebody's asking of me, so I can't not fulfil that, because that means I'm not working hard enough, and that means I don't want it enough'."

Rapp's mother deliberately gave her an alliterative name "just in case you want to be a star"

That single-minded, almost masochistic, focus comes from her parents.

Her dad's a medical salesman, while her mum, an accountant, now acts as her business manager.

"People are like, 'Woo, that must be hard, the mother-daughter dynamic'," she says.

"Of course there are difficult moments, but I have difficult moments working with people that I'm not related to as well - and no one's ever going to protect me like my mother.

"Other people will throw me under the bus faster than you can blink an [expletive] eye.

"Both my parents," she concludes, "care so much about each other and our family, that there's just sort of an aggression and a determination that translated to me, especially when it comes to work."

Like many perfectionists before her, however, Rapp discovered she couldn't just power through the tiredness and annoyance.

Arriving at the studio to work on new music, everything spilled out.

"I was basically ranting, saying I wished people would get off my back.

"And everybody in the room said, 'That's the song'."

Falling for a 'British princess'

Written on the spur of the moment, Leave Me Alone quickly became the obvious choice to launch Rapp's second album, Bite Me.

Before the interview, she plays me six of the record's 12 songs, including an irresistibly catchy tribute to her girlfriend, Towa Bird.

Titled Shy, it describes how Rapp became tongue-tied around the British musician when they toured together in 2023.

"I am not a shy person whatsoever, so that made me realise how madly in love I was with her," she says.

"I'd just got out of a relationship and I was so relieved to be on my own, then I was smacked in the face by these feelings.

"I was a nervous wreck, like, 'I want to throw up'."

She's still besotted today. Her opal blue eyes glow as she rhapsodises about her "British princess".

"Not only is she my best friend and my most trusted confidant, but also she wants me to win just as much as I want her to win – and that feeling is so scarce."

Towa Bird joined Reneé Rapp on stage for her performance at the 2024 Coachella Festival

Elsewhere, the album reflects on Rapp's former flames, including a pair of tracks that explore what happens when a third person inserts themselves into a relationship.

On Why Is She Still Here, Rapp confronts her partner about a girl who's gotten a little too close: "You tell me you don't love her/ but you should probably tell her, too."

Flipping the script, Rapp severs ties with a friend when the temptation to stray becomes too strong on the melancholy ballad I Can't Have You Around Me.

She sings it quietly, like an apology, with a subtlety that wasn't always present on her debut album, Snow Angel.

"Being a theatre girl, transitioning to pop music can be really difficult," confesses the star, who literally has the phrase Plus De Voix (more vocals) tattooed on her left wrist.

"You go from singing your guts out, to trying to tailor that voice and that volume to a studio setting.

"It was really hard for me, working out how to give the same quality of performance, but also pulling back 5,000 per cent.

"But I realised that if I want to have a really successful pop career, I have to make music that doesn't use the same parts of my voice that I use live."

"The willingness to go full throttle into my emotions is a such strong suit," says the singer.

She's looking forward to playing these songs live, but Rapp admits the burnout from her last tour still casts a shadow.

"I couldn't name you one set I've played in the last two years where I felt comfortable," she says.

"I look out [at the audience] and I'm like, 'I gotta go home'."

Part of the issue is that, as her star rose, Rapp's concerts attracted more casual fans and critics.

"I guess it's just harder for me to believe now that people care, even though I can see that the ones at the front do," she says.

"And a lot of voices came into my head. Criticism, self-destruction, labelling yourself not good enough. All of those negative things made it harder for me to perform."

But with new material (and a much-needed break) under her belt, Rapp's hopeful her upcoming tour, which hits the UK next March, will be different.

"Early on in my career, I was so euphoric when I played," she says.

"It'll be good to remember that feeling."