Soccer star who ignited Chappell Roan bodyguard drama now calls it ‘misunderstanding’
The Brazilian soccer player who slammed Chappell Roan for an incident involving his stepdaughter and a bodyguard in Brazil last month now says the drama was a “misunderstanding” and is “glad to set the record straight.”
Jorginho Frello says he knows now Roan did not send her security personnel to confront his wife and 11-year-old stepdaughter at a Sao Paolo hotel while attending Lollapalooza Brazil. The run-in left the girl in tears, according to her parents.
News reports of the incident subjected the Missouri-born “Pink Pony Club” singer to harsh criticism, particularly from soccer fans, leading to weeks of online scorn. People criticized her for how she treats fans and some even suggested that she lies about her upbringing in Missouri.
“It’s important to me that this is clarified fairly and accurately,” Frello wrote Monday in an Instagram Stories post. “I regret the impact this situation has had on Chappell Roan, Catherine, Ada, and our family.”
The drama erupted after Frello and his wife, in separate social media posts, alleged that a bodyguard working for Roan spoke aggressively to their daughter after she walked past Roan’s table during breakfast. They held Roan responsible for the security guard’s behavior.
Afterward, Roan said she didn’t know anything about the incident when it happened and that she did not tell security to confront anyone. She also said the guard involved was not part of her personal security team, something the bodyguard himself later confirmed while publicly taking responsibility for the interaction.
“They did not come up to me. They weren’t doing anything. It’s unfair for security to just assume someone doesn’t have good intentions when they have no reason to believe, because there’s no action even taken,” Roan said in a video.
“I do not hate people who are fans of my music. I do not hate children. Like, that is crazy. 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.”
Frello, who has 5 million Instagram followers, wrote Monday that while the situation “did occur as it was originally described,” his initial statement was made “in the heat of the moment, after hearing that my child and wife had been approached by an adult male security guard in an intimidating way. … My priority is, and always will be, protecting my family, and that is exactly what I did.”
Noting that the guard “has since confirmed publicly that he was representing another artist at the hotel at the time,” Frello said it’s clear now that the guard wasn’t working for Roan.
He said Roan reached out privately to his wife and that based on conversations with the singer’s team, it “became clear that she had no knowledge of what took place at breakfast and had not asked anyone to approach them.”
He went on to say he does “not support or encourage hate speech or online attacks from any side. Respect, empathy, and humility are values I carry and teach my family every single day.
“As far as I am concerned, this matter is closed.”
Roan has been out of the public eye since the incident, but resurfaced over the weekend at Coachella.
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