Reneé Rapp is the most relatable, humble, hilarious queen - and her beauty shines from the inside out. Reneé can tell a good story, so ELLE decided to ask her for some of her best firsts. Keeping it transparent, Reneé tells the stories of announcing her first kiss on Facebook to the hilarious details on her first music video *that we will never get to see.* Get to know the internet's bestie on a whole new level.
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00:00 You know that song?
00:00 My first kiss went a little like this.
00:04 And so I was like, this would be a lovely
00:06 little Facebook status for me right now.
00:08 Hey guys, what's up?
00:09 It's Renee Rapp and today I'm going to be reminiscing
00:12 on all my firsts with Elle.
00:15 My first time on stage was I think when I was three
00:19 and it was my first year of doing competition dance,
00:22 which by the way is a lot like dance mom's culture.
00:26 If you were curious to put your child in dance,
00:28 just be very careful.
00:30 I remember a lot of running around in big concrete rooms
00:35 that were backstage areas and stuff
00:38 and the energy was tough.
00:40 People are intense.
00:41 There was one time where this girl that I was dancing with,
00:44 her mom yelled to her younger sister,
00:47 get the Gatorade!
00:48 It was a very intense thing.
00:49 She's a kid, it's okay.
00:51 She's fine.
00:52 We're doing tap, not surgery.
00:57 My first celebrity encounter was when I was in high school,
01:00 I did this festival called the Funk Fest,
01:04 which is like a touring R&B festival
01:06 and it came to Charlotte.
01:08 I, for whatever reason, ended up performing that day
01:12 and opening up for everybody that night,
01:14 which in hindsight is just ridiculous
01:16 and I had no business being there.
01:18 But I met Erykah Badu and I was so excited
01:23 because I love her more than anything
01:26 and she's also so tiny.
01:27 She's so cute.
01:28 Her hat is so huge.
01:29 My first big break was in Mean Girls on Broadway.
01:34 How did I feel when I landed the role?
01:36 I remember feeling nothing
01:38 because I was really stressed
01:41 about wanting to become a pop star
01:43 and I was auditioning for a bunch of musical theater
01:45 and so I was deciding between Mean Girls
01:48 and the other show.
01:49 I was literally fighting to do it.
01:51 I was fighting to do it.
01:53 It was Magic Mike Live, the musical,
01:55 and I was hell bent on it.
01:56 I was like, I must play the titular role.
02:00 Not of Mike, of the girlfriend.
02:01 I was like, I gotta do it.
02:02 And my parents were like, what are you doing?
02:04 They were like, are you stupid?
02:06 'Cause it was just in development
02:07 and it was gonna be like a two week lab.
02:09 So I remember being just heartbroken
02:11 that I wasn't going to be in Magic Mike Live,
02:13 the musical, the movie, the musical.
02:15 So then I chose a different, the movie, the musical,
02:16 the movie, the musical instead.
02:18 Yeah, then I did Mean Girls.
02:19 So I just remember feeling like,
02:21 I gotta talk to Channing Tatum.
02:24 My first time being recognized in public.
02:27 So when I was in high school,
02:28 there was a Bryson Tiller song
02:30 that had sampled an old song.
02:32 Two of my friends recorded me doing this riff
02:35 and it became a thing online.
02:38 And I was like, oh cute.
02:39 I was like, this is my first little viral moment.
02:41 Oh, I was excited.
02:43 And I remember being out in Charlotte
02:46 and somebody was like, are you that girl that sings?
02:49 And I was like,
02:50 I am.
02:53 What about it?
02:54 I was so excited.
02:54 I was so excited.
02:55 And then all the comments started getting super brutal
02:57 'cause they were like, she doesn't have a lot of lip.
02:59 Where's her upper lip?
03:00 That sits with me to this day.
03:01 But that was my first moment getting recognized in public.
03:04 If you do watch the video,
03:05 it does look like I have no upper lip.
03:07 First song I wrote for the new album is 23,
03:10 which is the last track on the album
03:12 and closes it out in the most perfect way.
03:14 I wrote it on January 9th of this year,
03:17 the day before I turned 23.
03:18 I hate how I feel before my birthday.
03:21 I just don't feel great
03:22 and I feel awkward and weird
03:25 and all my friends hate me and my parents hate me,
03:28 which is not true.
03:29 And so I was like,
03:30 I gotta write a song about the birthday scaries.
03:32 And we did.
03:33 And Alexander told me a couple months later,
03:35 he was like, I almost said we cannot write that song
03:39 so many times as we were writing it that day.
03:41 'Cause he was like, I can't be Alexander 23
03:43 and have co-written a song called 23.
03:45 And I'm so glad he didn't say anything
03:46 'cause we didn't know each other at the time.
03:48 We weren't cool.
03:49 If he would have said that, I would have been like,
03:50 oh my God, yeah, no, for sure.
03:51 I didn't even wanna write it anyway.
03:54 My first kiss, I remember very well
03:56 because it was quite an event in my household.
03:58 It was with Ryan Riggs, who was a friend of mine,
04:01 who I was dating at the time in sixth grade.
04:04 Hello, my love.
04:06 I remember this all vividly because, you know that song?
04:10 ♪ My first kiss went a little like this ♪
04:14 I was like, this would be a lovely little Facebook status
04:17 for me right now, because I had just had my first kiss.
04:19 And so I put on Facebook.
04:21 I was like, my first kiss went a little like this.
04:24 And then a little emoji.
04:26 So my mother got on my Facebook
04:28 and was like, in this household?
04:30 And so she was super unhappy with that.
04:32 And I had to take the post down.
04:33 I was trying to be out there from a very young age.
04:36 It's all about the marketing, you know?
04:39 First artist that inspired me to make music
04:41 is Beyonce, hands down.
04:43 I just remember being so blown away and determined
04:46 every single time that I would see her perform.
04:49 My favorite Beyonce song is "Hello."
04:51 I know, I know, I know, controversial.
04:53 It served a place in my life in high school.
04:55 And so it's my favorite song
04:56 'cause it sits in a very specific place in my youth.
05:00 The first TikTok I ever made
05:03 was probably some terribly cringey video I made
05:07 in my New York apartment when I was 19.
05:11 I got a TikTok in November of 2019
05:13 'cause my dad had been down my throat
05:16 about me getting that app
05:17 'cause he was talking to one of my friends
05:19 who was an influencer at the time,
05:21 who was like, "If your daughter wants to have anything
05:23 "in this music business, she must get on Musical.ly."
05:26 And my dad was like, "All right."
05:28 And so he kept hounding me to get this app called Musical.ly.
05:31 And I was like, "That is so dumb."
05:32 I was like, "I'm not getting that."
05:34 So I got a TikTok.
05:35 I don't remember what my first video was,
05:37 but I remember I made a lot of videos at Mean Girls.
05:39 And I tried to do little trends,
05:43 and I put those weird-ass filters on there.
05:45 Called it a day.
05:46 My first heartbreak was when I was in fifth grade,
05:50 and it was this guy.
05:52 I don't even think I really liked,
05:54 but everybody liked him.
05:56 And he was one of those types that was like,
05:58 you know, lanky, cigarette-looking boy,
06:00 and had brown, swoopy hair.
06:04 And Justin Bieber was God at the time.
06:07 And so I was like, "He is just so cute."
06:09 I think we dated, and I think he broke up with me.
06:13 And I was baffled.
06:14 Actually, looking back on it,
06:15 there's no way he broke up with me.
06:17 I think I did break up with him.
06:18 That being said, I made sure that the heartbreak
06:20 was on my part, and I was the victim.
06:23 My first red carpet was [laughs]
06:27 the Freaky Friday, the musical, the movie, premiere.
06:30 Okay, by the way, the musical, the movie,
06:32 the musical, the movie is just such a [beep] theme
06:34 in my life.
06:35 And I wore hot pink heels, open toe,
06:39 and a black bandeau from Topshop,
06:42 and some I.M.Gia pants.
06:44 How do I remember this?
06:45 And then they had a big silver chain on the side.
06:48 I did my own makeup and my own hair.
06:51 I mean, I just looked crazy.
06:52 But I was like, "Oh my God, a movie.
06:54 "How cute of me."
06:56 It was really intimidating, and also very humbling,
06:59 'cause you walk down the carpet,
07:00 and there's a bunch of interviewers,
07:01 and they were incredibly not interested.
07:03 And I was like, "Cool, I didn't wanna talk to you either."
07:06 My first embarrassing moment on stage,
07:08 I feel like I was nine,
07:09 and there was a Junior Cabaret at Theatre Charlotte,
07:12 which is the community theater that I used to do stuff at
07:14 when I was a kid.
07:15 And I was doing "I'll Be There" by the Jackson 5,
07:17 except it was a solo.
07:20 I was all five of 'em.
07:22 [laughs]
07:23 Completely forgot the words.
07:25 Completely forgot.
07:26 Black out forgot.
07:27 Couldn't find 'em if they hit me in the face.
07:29 And my parents are very judgmental.
07:31 They love me, to be clear,
07:32 but they're very judgmental.
07:33 Like, you know, if I missed a note growing up,
07:35 it was like, "Ah, that was sharp," right?
07:37 So I forgot all the words, and I was so sad.
07:41 I was so sad.
07:42 And so I'm literally on stage, like, crying, like,
07:44 ♪ If you should ever find someone new ♪
07:49 [screams]
07:50 And I just started freaking out.
07:52 And my dad was like, "Yeah,
07:54 "that one really got away from you, little girl."
07:56 [laughs]
07:58 And I was like, "Yeah, Dad."
07:59 I was like, "It's so sad."
08:00 And he's like, "Yeah, yeah, that was sad."
08:04 And I was like, "Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool."
08:05 But I ate what I did remember.
08:07 My first music video was eons ago
08:11 that I personally shot.
08:13 I had a hamster when I was younger named Hammy.
08:15 And me and my cousin Joe used to dress the hamster up.
08:18 We shot videos, movies, music videos,
08:21 and one of them was "Hammy Goes to War,"
08:23 and the other one was "Hammy in the Kitchen,"
08:25 and it was like a Guy Fieri kind of thing.
08:27 And then we shot a music video with Hammy
08:30 where she was a pop star, a legend in the making.
08:32 My first music video in my career,
08:35 a video that will never see the light of day.
08:37 And I'm sure now that I've said that,
08:39 somebody will resurface and find it,
08:41 which is super good for me.
08:42 I had this song in high school that I did called "Hell No,"
08:47 and I did shoot a music video for it.
08:49 And it is the worst thing ever.
08:52 I was watching TV one day,
08:54 and it came on in an insurance commercial.
08:58 And I was like, "Excuse me?"
09:01 And I guess the guy who shot the video
09:02 had like stole his footage to some insurance company.
09:06 They didn't even use the song, though.
09:08 They weren't even plugging my song.
09:09 It was just like a picture of me on the beach
09:11 like, "Yeah, top 10 things I regret in my life.
09:15 "That and traumatizing my hamster."
09:17 Thanks so much for hanging out with me and Elle today.
09:19 Make sure you check out my new album, "Snow Angel," now.
09:23 (upbeat music)
09:26 [music]