Robert Smith comments on relationships with fans

Robert Smith of the Care commented on the impact of fame during a new Sidetracked podcast interview with Annie Mac and Nick Grimshaw, where he discussed the release of the band’s latest LP, “Songs Of A Lost World“.

The frontman of the English band commented on the “obsessive behavior of the fans” starting from the statements of Chappell Roan on relationships with his admirers

Over the course of this year, the American singer has spoken about her experiences with fame, venting about normalizing extreme behavior from some fans, including “stalking, badmouthing online, people not leaving you alone and yelling at you against in public”. She added: “I didn’t know I would feel so bad.”

The pop star also compared fame to “an abusive ex-husband” and on TikTok expressed her thoughts on “strange” and “disturbing” followers and denounced the “predatory behavior” of so-called “superfans”, which includes “physical interactions and non-consensual social issues”. Earlier this year, Roan also responded to a photographer who allegedly told the singer to “shut up” during the 2024 MTV VMAs. She later confronted a photographer who she said was was “disrespectful” towards him.

When asked about Roan’s comments about fame, Smith responded that it’s a “complicated topic,” adding: “You want people to feel like they’re thinking about engaging with you, but it’s a phenomenon of the modern world that’s there a sense of entitlement that wasn’t there among fans when we started.”

“It was enough that we did what we did and that people didn’t expect much,” he continued. “I, as a consumer, didn’t expect anything more. It was enough to see Alex Harvey or David Bowie. I didn’t expect to hang out with them or really get to know them, whereas now it almost seems like that’s part of the deal.”

He later said that as The Cure became more popular, he experienced “obsessive behavior from fans”, including people sleeping outside his front door who he perceived as “quite threatening”.

“You think: How do you respond to this? Because it’s impossible, really, you can’t be trained to respond,” he said. And I think if you’re elevated to a position of celebrity or success in a reasonably quick period of time, it’s harder to deal with things because you don’t have a foundation of how to deal with the lower level.”

“It took years and years and years of touring and traveling around the world and doing things, so by the time we started getting really famous, I already knew how to react. I had already developed it as part of myself.” . Smith added: “But being famous, and if you don’t like what you do, I can’t imagine worse ways to live, because it’s horrible to be stared at all the time, like poked and prodded and people always expecting you to more from you. It’s a very strange thing.”

During his podcast appearance, Robert Smith also talked about his vast music collection, but added that it would be “disingenuous” to pretend he had dabbled in this year’s pop phenomena like Charli XCX’s “Brat” and Chappell Roan’s debut LP “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess”.

Smith said those records weren’t “meant” for him and that “it would be a little weird if I said ‘yeah, that’s my favorite thing’.” He added: “I think what they do as artists is really cool, but I think it would probably be dishonest if I said that’s what I listen to at home.”

However, he admitted that he has been aware of Chappell Roan for a long time, as well as his sudden rise to fame in the year following the release of his debut album 2023.