Reneé Rapp Credits Beyoncé as the ‘Reason That I Know How to Sing’

Reneé Rapp is on a roll. After earning the biggest U.S. sales debut in 2023 for a debut pop album by a female artist with Snow Angel, the multi-hyphenate has translated that success to film with the box office-topping Mean Girls as she preps new music. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter (Feb. 28), the “Tummy Hurts” singer gushes over getting literal flowers from Beyoncé, her special friendship with Megan Thee Stallion and her dreams of making an R&B album.

On Feb. 13, just two days after Beyoncé surprise-dropped her new country songs “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages” during the 2024 Super Bowl — Rapp performed a cover of Queen Bey’s first proper foray into country music: “Daddy Lessons” from 2016’s Grammy-winning Lemonade. Just four days later (Feb. 17), Rapp took to her Instagram page to share a photo of herself with her hand over her mouth as she took in the gorgeous bouquet of flowers sent to her by none other than Beyoncé herself.

“I’ve never been speechless in my life. It’s literally going to make me cry,” Rapp told The Hollywood Reporter. “She is everything — and the reason that I know how to sing. I would sit down and listen to her different tonalities and phonics and phrasing styles and be like, ‘Please, Jesus, let me be able to do this.’”

Beyoncé has been a fixture in Rapp’s life long before she took the world by storm with Mean Girls, The Sex Lives of College Girls and her Snow Angel LP. Back when she was trying to break into the industry, Rapp used to upload covers of Beyoncé songs on YouTube. Queen Bey also provided a bit more than just musical inspiration for a young Rapp. “I had body dysmorphia and feeling like I had too much of an a–. If I felt badly about my body, my mother would make me sing ‘Bootylicious,’ and it was everything to me,” Rapp recalled, referencing Destiny’s Child‘s 2001 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit.

Rapp may have gotten flowers for her quick embrace of Beyoncé’s country era — “Let’s be clear, Beyoncé doing country is the best thing that’s ever happened to country music” — but she’s been taking inspiration from all of Queen Bey’s era, especially her R&B ones. The “Poison Poison” singer notes Beyoncé, SZA, Frank Ocean and Jazmine Sullivan as formative musical influences who “have made the biggest impact in [her] life.”

“I wanted so badly to do something that was slightly R&B-leaning, but in a way that wasn’t making something my own that is not at all my own, and something that feels authentic,” she explained to The Hollywood Reporter. “I would love to do a project like that, but it needs to be done well … because I think if a white girl does anything that slightly emulates R&B, it’s praised 10 times more than when Black people do it … just because of the way the f—king world works, and it’s s–ty in that regard. But yeah, it is something that I want to do so badly, and I will do.”

In the interim, Rapp is still pursuing her pop-star dreams, which she recently funneled into “Not My Fault,” a Megan Thee Stallion collaboration that served as the lead single for the Mean Girls movie musical soundtrack. Gushing over having been a fan of the H-Town Hottie “since she was doing music videos and mixtapes on the f–king top of the parking garage, in that little tan top,” Renée describes Megan as caring friend to whom she can open up about anxiety.

“It’s comforting to talk to her too about having anxiety,” she said. “I’ll text her, I’ll be like, ‘I’m petrified.’ And she’ll be like, ‘It’s cool, I’m here. I’m scared too, but look, I’m going to be at the same thing. And so, at least we’ll have each other.'”

Reneé Rapp has landed one title on the Billboard 200; her debut LP, Snow Angel, peaked at No. 44. “Not My Fault” has proven to be her most successful single to date, peaking at No. 18 on Pop Airplay and at No. 2 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100.