Meet the Strongwoman and Bodybuilders Chappell Roan Chose for Lollapalooza
When Inez Carrasquillo got a call asking her to work at Lollapalooza, she thought the festival needed her as a security guard. “I’m 6-foot-1 and 250 pounds, so I assumed that’s what they needed,” she says with a laugh. But no, Chappell Roan wanted the professional strongwoman onstage. “I was really confused because I am definitely not a backup dancer.”
On Thursday evening, the “Good Luck, Babe” pop star, known for taking on wild themes for each of her shows, took the stage in front of the festival crowd wearing a lucha libre mask, surrounded by bodybuilders and other athletes, and in front of a massive wrestling rink. Rolling Stone called Roan’s set “headline-worthy,” and for many of the athletes, including Carrasquillo, it was a completely unexpected, once-in-a-lifetime experience to join her onstage.
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Carrasquillo — who just days before Lollapalooza, earned the title of North America’s strongest woman during a competition in Canada — was tapped by Lawrence Scott, the owner of Chicago’s Rockwell Barbell gym, for the performance. He says a producer for the show had reached out to him a few weeks prior looking for “muscular, unique-looking, tattooed fitness people” for the show. After sending some photos of the gym’s athletes, Roan selected Scott and Carrasquillo to join her for the show.
“I love training because I can train by myself so to be in front of a crowd like that was crazy,” says Carrasquillo. “I’m also autistic so it’s very difficult to express myself in the way I want to so to be able to go onstage and hit some barbells, like what I do in the gym, was great.”
“Powerlifting is a subculture,” adds Scott. “We’re an underdog sport and not many people understand it so it was great to show a massive amount of people what that looks like.”
Carrasquillo also had “no idea” who Chappell Roan was. She and many of the other members of Rockwell’s “hardcore” gym are more into punk and death metal. (Carrasquillo names Dying Fetus and Peeling Flesh as two of her favorite artists.) “I never thought in a million years I’d be doing this,” she says.
Standing near Carrasquillo, and right behind Roan during “Naked in Manhattan” were physique athlete Jerisa Upton and bikini bodybuilder Victoria Burmester. During the set, the women picked up foam dumbbells and flexed their physiques for the crowd.
“I like to train hard and I like to make it sexy in there,” says Burmester with a laugh. She got the call from her home gym, Quads, who automatically thought of her for the gig.
Before the show, Burmester — who works as an attorney in Chicago — remembers meeting a mother and daughter who had flown from Oregon to see Roan perform. Talking to the pair before the show made her go from “nervous to totally pumped to give them a good show.”
“I was looking as far as I could see, but the crowd just kept going,” she says. “I’ve worked so hard to build my physique, and bodybuilding is a thing that can be received in many different ways so just to feel so much love with this was beautiful for me.”
Burmester and the rest of the athletes even got to meet Roan before the show. “She was delightful and such a down-to-earth sweet girl,” says Burmester, who had heard of Roan but didn’t realize how big her crowd would be.
Upton, on the other hand, had discovered Roan’s music a few months before and her music had slowly become “the soundtrack of her summer.” She remembers watching her Late Show performance of “Red Wine Supernova” and feeling entranced by her music.
Though Upton is an ally and not a member of the LGBTQ community like Roan, whose shows are known for being an ultra-safe space for queer people, performing with Roan was “kismet.” Upton dedicates much of her training at Cheetah Gym to working with transgender people struggling with gender dysphoria amid their transitioning, and “building their body to match their gender identity.”
“I have never heard the sound of that many people roaring and cheering at once. It was electrifying and sent goosebumps down my body,” she says. “The minute we got the cue to go, all the nerves went away. We were all there for Chappell, but it felt like it was my show too.”
She adds: “I don’t think I’ll ever get that feeling again.”
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