Chappell Roan says her old label tried to stop her from releasing 'Pink Pony Club.' Now, it's a top 40 hit with millions of streams.

• Chappell Roan has emerged as one of music's biggest breakout stars in 2024.
• She was originally signed to Atlantic Records before the label dropped her in 2020.
• Roan said Atlantic discouraged her from releasing "Pink Pony Club," now one of her signature hits.

Chappell Roan's "Pink Pony Club" is one of her signature hits and a staple of her live shows, where crowds turn up to dance in bedazzled fuchsia cowboy hats. But according to Roan, if her label had its way, she never would have released it at all.

Before Roan became one of 2024's biggest breakout stars, the 26-year-old Midwesterner was signed to Atlantic Records. At the time, she secured a contract off the strength of her self-written ballads, songs like "Die Young," which she now describes as boring and corny.

In Rolling Stone's new cover story, Roan explained how she quickly got "sick of singing and performing depressing songs."

In 2018, she met Daniel Nigro, the former rocker and pop producer now famous for working closely with Olivia Rodrigo.

Roan and Nigro made "Pink Pony Club" in 2018, which Roan said was closer to the joyful, flamboyant pop sound she wanted to pursue.

However, Roan told Rolling Stone that Atlantic Records resisted her new direction and tried to dissuade her from releasing the song.

"I was so devastated," Roan said. "It made me second-guess myself."

Roan and Nigro both had a gut feeling that "Pink Pony Club" could become a hit, so they fought for it. Atlantic relented and it was released as a single in April 2020.

The song was well received by fans, but it didn't immediately reach the mainstream. That summer, Atlantic dropped Roan. Without a label or sustainable income — while simultaneously reeling from a recent breakup — Roan left Los Angeles and moved back to Missouri. By her own account, she spent her time going to therapy and working at a drive-thru.

When she reconnected with Nigro the following year, the duo made two more pop bangers, "Naked in Manhattan" and "My Kink Is Karma" (with writing help from Skyler Stonestreet and Justin Tranter, respectively). Meanwhile, Roan was building an audience on TikTok and refining her drag queen-inspired stage aesthetic. She signed a new contract with Nigro's own label imprint, Amusement Records.

Three years later, Roan's debut album, "The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess," has reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 — second only to Taylor Swift's "The Tortured Poets Department" — and "Pink Pony Club" has finally found the audience that Roan hoped it could. In August, the song peaked at No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 (her third-highest peak to date, trailing "Good Luck, Babe!" at No. 6 and "Hot to Go!" at No. 16) and has racked up over 180 million streams on Spotify to date.

"It feels so good to prove them wrong because they weren't just a little wrong," Roan said of her former team at Atlantic, who declined to provide a comment for Rolling Stone's story.

"They were really, really, really wrong," she continued. "To know that my gut instinct was right is the best feeling in the world. Purposeful revenge does not feel good, but revenge by accident feels awesome."