Patrick RyanUSA TODAY
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LOS ANGELES – On Sunday night, Chappell Roan brought it home to West Hollywood.
At 21, the pop sensation had a divine experience at hallowed gay bar The Abbey, which went on to inspire her joyous hit song “Pink Pony Club.” Six years later, Roan performed the tune with Elton John just a block away at West Hollywood Park, where the music legend hosted his annual Oscars after-party. Donning a sparkly pink cowboy hat with silver fringe, John helped close out the night as he danced and sang the queer anthem onstage with Roan.
“You have sacrificed so much for the queer community, and you made it so I can be the artist I can be,” Roan told him before the performance. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re the best, baby,” John said. “Thank you for doing this.”
Chappell Roan proclaims 'free the nipple!' at Oscars after-party concert
It was a shockingly intimate show for Roan, 27, whose popularity has exploded within the past year. Although she now plays to festival crowds of roughly 100,000 people, Sunday’s headlining set found the Grammy winner performing for just a few hundred partygoers in a white-and-gold tent. (“Can you believe it?” she quipped. “We’re in a dog park behind the Abbey!”)
Dressed in a ruffled white shirt with a black vest, the electrifying Roan ran through nearly a dozen of her beloved songs, including “My Kink is Karma,” “Naked in Manhattan,” “Casual” and “Good Luck, Babe!” She cheekily introduced “Hot to Go!,” which has its own delightful accompanying dance.
“I’m going to teach you guys a dance,” Roan explained. “I know some of you are wearing strapless little gowns. So if I tell you to raise your arms and a little nip slip happens … good! Free the nipple! It’s Elton John’s party, you can do that here!”
At times, she lightly chided the stuffy crowd of tuxedo-clad guests, many of whom watched the show through their smartphones and refused to move to the music.
“There’s a very strange row of people in the back all wearing the same thing, all of them looking like this,” Roan said at one point, feigning a dead-eyed expression. “Honey, welcome. I invite you to let loose, baby. Oscars are over! Let’s have fun!”
Chappell Roan delivers a beautiful 'Your Song,' duets with Elton John onstage
The emotional highlights of the night were Roan’s gorgeous covers of John’s catalog: Midway through the concert, she unearthed a heavenly rendition of his 1970 ballad “Your Song.”
“I’m going to sing a song that’s one of my favorite songs of all time,” Roan said. “I think it’s maybe the best song of all time. I dedicate it to my parents – They’re here tonight! Mom and Dad, wave! – I dedicate this song to them, because they introduced me to Elton John. I would not even be here were it not for them! And obviously, Elton, this is yours.”
Afterward, the Midwest Princess admitted that it was “scary to sing it in front of the person who wrote it.” But that didn’t deter Roan later on, when she brought John onstage for a soaring duet of his stirring 1974 anthem “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.” The Piano Man, of course, handled the keys as she looked on fondly.
At the start of the evening, John, 77, told the crowd how he fell in love with Roan and her music.
“She’s so kind and amazingly agreed to do this,” John said. “She’s one of the biggest stars in the world right now. She not only speaks with her voice onstage, but offstage, too. So it’s my honor, and privilege, to welcome to the stage, the incredible Chappell Roan!”
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'Anora' cast and crew party late into the night after Oscar best picture win
John’s starry Oscar gathering, which raises money for his AIDS foundation, wasn’t the only raucous after-party happening in West Hollywood. After its eye-popping tally of five Oscar wins, the place to be late Sunday night was the “Anora” celebration, which distributor Neon hosted at the swank Soho House West Hollywood.
Guests dined on a spread of pizza, fries and tortellini as they waited on director Sean Baker, who made his entrance roughly three hours after the ceremony ended. Baker and his wife, producer Samantha Quan, were greeted with roaring applause as they ascended the club’s lit-up marble staircase, each with two Oscar statuettes in hand.
The bash stretched across multiple floors and rooms, with a stunning, wraparound view of the LA night sky. “Red Rocket” star Simon Rex was spotted early in the evening grooving to Curtis Mayfield and Thelma Houston, but he later ceded the dance floor to “Anora” breakout Mark Eydelshteyn, who wildly spun around and head-banged his way through the film’s signature tune, Take That’s “Greatest Day.”
He grabbed his buddy Yura Borisov as they elatedly jumped up and down, although they snuck off to another room when the DJ queued up – of all songs ‒ Roan’s “Hot to Go!”
