Anyone with even a passing familiarity with 25-year-old Reneé Rapp knows that she isn’t afraid to say—or sing about—exactly what’s on her mind. Take, for example, one viral line in “Leave Me Alone,” the angsty lead single from her sophomore album, Bite Me, out now: “Took my sex life with me, now that show ain’t fuckin’,” Rapp spits, a clear reference to her departure from the star-making Max series The Sex Lives of College Girls in 2023. The lyric feels in the spirit of some of her bolder (and wittier) moments promoting last year’s Mean Girls movie, a period that peaked with Rapp being sentenced to “40 hours of court-ordered media training” on Saturday Night Live.
Given all her wisecracking—and that wildly impressive résumé (Broadway! Television! A hit debut album! A deal with L’Oréal Paris!)—it seems ironic that Rapp is also the first to admit that she struggles with imposter syndrome. It’s a tension she explores on Bite Me, a record about big, spiky feelings—confidence, insecurity, the thrill of success and its maddening pressures. It finds Rapp at a cathartic crossroads as she builds on the success of her first album, 2023’s Snow Angel—and now, as ever, she has a few things to get off her chest.
Vogue: Your new album is called Bite Me. Where did that title come from? It’s such a throwback insult.
Reneé Rapp: It came from my dad, who says it all the time. I remember him saying it, and I was like, “I love that.” He is the most insane person ever. People think that I talk crazy, but he talks fucking insane. He’s so lovely and so nice, and he curses like a drunken sailor. I’d hear him say, “Oh, bite me!” and I was always like, “Wow, that’s so petty.” It just sounds like something the mean, pretty girl in school would say when she couldn’t really cuss at a teacher. It felt very appropriate for where I was at in my life. At that point, I feel like I was just kind of inundated with things to do and all of these responsibilities. There was a lot being asked of me. It’s the most consumer-friendly way of saying, “Get the fuck outta my face!”
Bite Me is anchored by its brashness, its anger, and its theme of score-settling. Did you have those concepts in mind going into it, or did they just kind of reveal themselves to you as you were working?
I definitely had that theme going into it. I knew the attitude and I knew the name of the album before it all started coming together. It was like, what thematically fits those things in my life? Because it’s not like I feel so sorry for myself. That would be a very different lens to write through.
I know Joan Jett serves as an influence for you, especially with the single “Leave Me Alone.” What about her is inspiring?
The most basic part of that answer is that she’s such a lesbian legend. Something I was also talking about the other day, which I thought was so funny, is that our names are similar, in that I’m RR and she’s JJ. But her entire attitude was always a really strong blend of being a beautiful girl, but she’s very masculine as well. She has this—no pun intended—bite to everything she writes about, and it’s all very in-your-face. The more in-your-face it is, the more you actually accept it, which I was always so drawn to. She’s got a sharp edge to her, which I really take a lot of inspiration from, since I would venture to say that people also think that about myself.
Some of these songs are written about real people, many of whom you don’t exactly flatter. I’m wondering if they’re aware you’re writing about them—and what you’d say if you ran into them after the release of this album.
You know, I don’t really tiptoe around any situation. I’ve just always been very much like, Let’s take it on the chin. Why not? But I also think that these songs are written about so many different people. If I tried to give you a list, I would probably even be surprised by how many people in old relationships, new relationships, and old friendships are a part of this album. If I really don’t like somebody, they know, so it’s not like they’ll be shocked if they think I wrote a song about them.
At the same time, people make assumptions about who the songs are about, and often they’re just wrong. But I never plan where I’m going [around] if somebody’s gonna be there or not. People I don’t like don’t rattle me. Stay 50 feet away from me—or more—for your own sake. I’m around bitches I don’t like all the time, it’s nothing new. I’ve been forced to be in so many spaces with people I don’t like. I’m a big girl.
On “Leave Me Alone,” you sing, “Signed a hundred NDAs but I still say something.” That sounds like something Jay-Z would write. My first thought: Is that an exaggeration? Do you think you’ve signed a hundred, or is it just a lot? More than 10?
That’s the highest compliment. I’ve probably signed more than 10, because you’d be surprised how many NDAs you sign. I make people sign NDAs all the time, because we just do things that you don’t want to get out there, or it’s information on a need-to-know basis. But no, I’ve only ever signed a really, like, deep one once or twice, I think.
But also, NDAs are kind of like stoplights or stop signs—they’re suggestions. It’s tough, because I think a lot of people in the industry use NDAs if there’s something they don’t want to get out there that is damning. I wouldn’t really be afraid of someone violating an NDA of mine if I hadn’t done anything wrong. I would assume that when people are afraid, it’s ’cause they’ve done some shit that they’re not proud of.
Your public persona is blunt, honest, and open; there’s no filter. You mentioned your father earlier—is that where you think it came from?
You know, it definitely didn’t hurt. There’s a cadence to how he talks, and how honest he is. Even the way he owns his mistakes and shortcomings was always really inspiring to me. A lot of the time, especially when you talk about media or promoting yourself, I am never walking into a situation, whether it is an interview or a show, being like, “How well can I present myself?” I think there’s a humanity with how I try to approach it. So it’s not really a thought process. It’s more just, like, how I was raised. What you see is what you get, really.
I’m wondering if seeing phoniness up-close made you double down on authenticity. Are there people in the public eye who you know have a different persona when they’re not on camera?
Honestly, I feel like I’m pretty drawn to the people who are themselves on and off camera. Those are the people that I really resonate with. So I don’t think I really know anyone who’s very different. I mean, I certainly know people who present themselves as a very nice person, and then behind your back, they’re absolutely trying to destroy other women’s careers and do bad shit. But as for everybody around me, for the most part, I flock to people who inspire me and who I respect.
There’s also a difference between being yourself and being open, and not protecting yourself at all. I think that because I’m perceived as quite an open book, people may think they know absolutely everything about me. But they don’t at all. Not to be on a high horse, but it’s kind of a little mind game. I give you the things that I’m okay with you knowing, and I keep other things in my personal life that I don’t want people to know.
You said in a recent interview, “No matter how many times anybody tells me that it’s going so well, the deeply rooted fear of not being enough or not being good enough takes over in my brain.” I was surprised by that, because you seem really confident. Even back when Laura Benanti presented you with the Jimmy Award, she cracked, “I will never be as confident as that 18-year-old.” How do you grapple with both the brash confidence and feeling like an imposter?
I know that the way people perceive me is very different from how I perceive myself. You think, over time, that it’s gonna be something that goes away just because more people accept you, but it actually doesn’t. I think I just come across [in one way], even though I don’t feel connected to that part of me at all.
I am very sure of myself, and I believe in myself, but at the same time I’m scared. But I also think there’s power in knowing both. I talk about this with my brother all the time: he just decided, like, a year and a half ago that he wanted to be an actor, and all of a sudden I found out he could sing and has an incredible stage presence. So we’re at very different stages in our careers. He just started auditioning for things, and he’ll say, “I wish I got that job. I don’t feel like I’m good enough.” And I’m like, “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m seven years into this shit, I’ve had many jobs, I currently have one that apparently everybody says is going well, and I still feel like shit.” I don’t know if that’s anything to look forward to, but it’s human. There’s gotta be a balance of feeling okay with yourself—I’m just not really there yet.
Shifting gears and speaking of your theater background, do you think that influences how you approach building an album?
I just learned how to manipulate my voice so well, working in theater. To be a theater vocalist, you have to have a really insane amount of power—unless you’re white, I guess. And then they just kind of let you mix in a really piss-poor, average way. That goes, of course, for every industry, but especially in musical theater. We love to award that shit.
But the best thing I learned was stage presence, even when I’m miserable, because, like, you don’t have an option in theater. You don’t even get to call out of the show if you have food poisoning. I don’t care what they tell you—you don’t get to call out, ’cause bitch, I didn’t.
It was Christmas Eve one year, and I had food poisoning, and I was sick on the floor, and I was like, “Guys, I can’t come in.” And they were like, “Oh, that would really reflect poorly on you if you didn’t come in on Christmas Eve.” And I was like, “Oh, God forbid. Okay, well, let me pull up, then.” I thought I was gonna die, but I learned how to fake it.
They say if you can do theater, you can do anything. I guess you’d say that’s true.
Oh my God, yeah. Broadway is a fucking grind. It is also really rewarding. It’s one of the things on my résumé that I actually feel very proud of. If you can do that, you’re kind of a beast.
Would you ever go back to Broadway?
I would be really open to doing it one day, but it would have to be down the line. I’d probably do it in, like, five to 10 years, when I’m a little more settled and after I’ve accomplished a couple of things that I want to do musically first.
Finally, I know you were one of World Pride DC’s Grand Marshalls with Laverne Cox, which is an honor any year, but especially poignant in 2025. What was that experience like?
Laverne made a good point, because I was telling her that with my social anxiety, I’m gonna wanna throw up, and she was like, “You know what? Me too.” But we agreed to this because the most important thing to do is to be visible and to present yourself in community with everybody else right now. Pride is inherently a protest, so doing it in DC, with the current administration, who are just sorry excuses for human life—like, what a waste of skin, of breath, a waste of air—it felt very important to be there. And I also got to bring my friends, which was nice, because we were, like, a big group of gay people and we had an honorary straight. But she dresses gay anyway, so it’s totally fine.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.