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Chappell Roan faced backlash over the weekend following public complaints by Italian footballer Jorginho Frello over how the pop star’s security detail treated his daughter. While Roan has apologized and the security guard took full responsibility for the incident, the Court of Social Media Opinion has had plenty of judgement to pass. However, a new report suggests that a larger percentage of that judgement was delivered by bots in a coordinated smear campaign.
Date analytics company GUDEA looked at 100,030 posts across social media platforms made between March 20th and March 22nd. (Frello’s story began spreading wide on March 21st.) The posts were generated by 54,334 users, but GUDEA determined 4.2% — about 2,282 — of those users were “non-typical,” meaning they were likely bots. Although that’s a ton of bots, it’s not an overwhelming amount; however, those bots made up over 23%, or 23,007, of the posts,
In their report, GUDEA report states (via BuzzFeed), “The incident prompted intense personal attacks on Chappell Roan, calls for boycotts, and significant misinformation (including satirical/fictional embellishment spreading as fact). Discourse ranged from legitimate fan criticism and debate about celebrity privacy vs. fan treatment, to coordinated attack campaigns and considerable satirical/humorous content that blurred the line with misinformation.”
This is similar to what GUDEA reported around Taylor Swift in 2025. Last year, an online conspiracy theory claiming Swift was a Nazi began to spread, and GUDEA found it was largely led by a bot army — one whose soldiers were involved in a similar astroturfing campaign against Blake Lively.
We’ll see if this new data helps ease Rio de Janeiro’s Mayor’s restrictions on Roan performing in the city. Roan, meanwhile, has been a frequent advocate for boundaries between her fans and herself. She’s also been known to call out paparazzi and autograph hounds right to their faces. But how does one call out the misbehavior of a swarm of bots?
The recent controversy began when Frello revealed a security guard confronted his stepdaughter for simply walking past Roan’s table at a hotel breakfast to see if it was her. The incident brought the young girl to tears, and caused both Frello and his wife, Catherine Harding, to speak publicly on the matter.
In Roan’s apology, she claimed the security guard was in no way a part of her team, and that she in fact never even noticed the little girl. “Like, I do not hate people who are fans of my music. I do not hate children. Like that is crazy,” Roan said. “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.”
The security guard, Pascal Duvier, has since issued a statement taking “full responsibility for the interactions,” stressing that he was not a member of Roan’s team and that his actions were not on behalf of anyone connected to her.
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