Growing up in the small conservative Missouri town of Willard, Chappell Roan kept her gay identity under wraps. "Pink Pony Club" is her anthem for this period, a vibrant escape hatch from a life that didn't quite fit. She dreamed of becoming a go-go dancer in Santa Monica, a place she perceived as more accepting and glamorous.
Roan drew inspiration from a night spent at The Abbey, a popular gay bar in West Hollywood. It was there, surrounded by acceptance and glitter, that Roan yearned for a world where her true self could take center stage.
The funny thing is, there's actually a Pink Pony Gentleman's Club in Atlanta, but this wasn't the inspiration. "I think they have a strip club [in Atlanta] called the Pink Pony,"
she explained to Pop Crave. "It wasn't influenced. I didn't know that existed until after, but it was actually influenced by a strip club in my hometown that was a hot pink building."
Roan co-wrote the song with Dan Nigro (the mastermind behind Olivia Rodrigo's
Sour and
Guts albums). Their first meeting sparked something special, and "Pink Pony Club" was the result of a conscious decision by Roan to crank up the energy.
"That took me about six months of failing; of writing session after session trying to write a happy song and just coming out with a sad ballad,"
she told Headliner. "I didn't understand how to write a happy pop song, but I was tired of singing sad songs on tour. It just makes you feel sad after a show... you don't feel super excited, and I wanted to dance and move on stage."
"I needed to be myself and I wanted to feel theatrical," Roan added. "I wanted it to feel like a show for people. That's what I feel like Pink Pony Club is doing."
Chappell Roan released "Pink Pony Club" on April 3, 2020, just as the COVID lockdown was kicking in. "It was a very dark time when it came out," she said. "No one could party, and it was West Hollywood's anthem! It's for going out and queerness, and it was just so sad that I couldn't perform it."
The music video for "Pink Pony Club," directed by Griffin Stoddard, sees an apprehensive Roan take the stage at a dive bar. The only audience is a gaggle of bikers who seem more interested in their beer than witnessing a pop star in the making.
However, by the end of the video, the bar is rocking. Chappell, shedding her initial nervousness (which, by her own admission, was very real), has won them over.
"We shot it pretty much in order," she recalled. "That nervousness that you see is 100% real – I was absolutely terrified. I'm not a dancer – I've never been strong at it, and I just knew I had to just not care... but it was hard to not care."
The music industry can be a fickle beast, and Roan found this out firsthand. Just four months after "Pink Pony Club" dropped, she got the boot from her record label, Atlantic Records. "Pink Pony Club" was re-released in early 2023 after Roan signed with Island Records and Amusement Records, and the song found its home on her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.
"Pink Pony Club" entered the Hot 100 in June 2024 after the success of her breakthrough single "
Good Luck, Babe!" heightened Roan's public profile.
Chappell Roan performed "Pink Pony Club" at the Grammy Awards in 2025 with a troupe of backup dancers in the guise of rodeo clowns. The ceremony took place in Los Angeles just weeks after wildfires ripped through the area, making Roan's celebration of LA culture more resonant.
She was nominated for six awards at the ceremony and won for Best New Artist.
Five years after its release, "Pink Pony Club" trotted to #1 on the UK Singles Chart dated March 13, 2025, becoming Roan's first chart-topping song in Britain.
