今日吃瓜

A new mental health and crisis support hotline has launched nearly one year after Chappell Roan spoke out about the music industry’s lack of support for artists in her Grammys acceptance speech.

Backline Care, a nonprofit dedicated to musicians鈥� mental health, have this week launched B-LINE, a hotline offering artists counsellors trained to help professionals in the music industry and their families.鈥淭his has always been the dream,” said Backline founder and executive director Hilary Gleason. “We鈥檝e supported thousands of music industry professionals in their mental health and wellness journeys, but one critical piece was missing: real-time access to care. B-LINE changes that.鈥�

A from Recording Academy initiative, MusiCare found that suicidal ideation for those in the music industry is more than double that of the general US population, with 15.4 per cent of respondents saying they knew a colleague who had died by suicide in the last year.

Call for health insurance and livable wages backed by other musicians

Although the project has been in the works for a while now, Backline said Roan’s 2025 speech 鈥渉elped set the stage for B-LINE鈥� by offering 鈥渋ncreased visibility鈥�.

Following her win, Roan gave a $25,000 seed donation to a Backline initiative We Got You! to support artists’ mental health, with Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter and Noah Kahan- now a supporter of B-LINE- later matching her donation.

UMG and the Music Health Alliance also announced a fund to connect artists to providers and financial aid for mental health care.

鈥淚 told myself if I ever won a Grammy and I got to stand up here in front of the most powerful people in music, I would demand that labels and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and health care, especially to developing artists,鈥� she said in her acceptance speech at the time.

鈥淚t was so devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system and so dehumanised to not have health insurance. And if my label would have prioritised artists鈥� health, I could鈥檝e been provided care by a company I was giving everything to. So record labels need to treat their artists as valuable employees with a livable wage and health insurance and protection.鈥�

Roan has never been a stranger to philanthropic offerings, even in the early days of her career. With the pop princess set to headline Laneway next Saturday, $1 from every every ticket purchased聽goes towards the festival鈥檚 Solar Slice fund, which is supporting two local organisations picked by Roan herself, Transcend Australia and Transgender Victoria.

In 2024, Roan鈥檚 fans聽raised over $160,000聽for queer and reproductive rights organisations, and a portion of her 2023 tour proceeds was donated to For The Gworls, a charity helping Black trans people with rent, gender affirming surgeries and other expenses.