Reneé Rapp Recalls the Time She Was 'Drugged' at a Party and Woke Up 'Alone in a Bathroom Stall'
"I stopped being friends with those people and stopped doing as much partying as I was doing," recalled Rapp on Jay Shetty's 'On Purpose' podcast
Rodin Eckenroth/FilmMagic
Reneé Rapp in Hollywood in August 2023The title track of Reneé Rapp's debut album Snow Angel was inspired by a very dark moment.
In a new interview with Jay Shetty's On Purpose podcast, the 23-year-old actress and singer-songwriter opened up about how "Snow Angel" was written about a time where she was drugged during a night out and woke up alone in a bathroom stall after several hours.
While the song's been out since June, Rapp told Shetty she hadn't yet explained its full meaning but promised fans she would one day. She also revealed the incident happened in early 2022. "I had just gone through a breakup, and it was really tough," she said. "It was the first time I had ever been really in love with someone and then experienced a breakup."
Related: Reneé Rapp Says Debut Album 'Snow Angel' Represents a 'Really Mature Version of Myself' (Exclusive)
As someone who'd been in relationships near-constantly for about five years, Rapp found herself single and 22 years old with a sense of "freedom" for the first time in her life. "I was living here in L.A., and I was hanging out in a new group of people, and they were partiers," she recalled, noting that her family and friends advised her it wasn't a "good group" to spend time with.
"I really let my judgment go when it came to the people around me," said Rapp, looking back on the night. "We were all out, and it was just situation after situation where they were just not trustworthy, and then the next thing you knew I was face up, laying down in a bathroom stall in a hotel bar, just waking up [at] 5 in the morning, completely alone."
"I woke up, and I was just so confused, and I had blood on my pants, and I was really just, like, so caught off guard," she continued. "I was completely alone in a bathroom stall and I looked down at my phone and it was 5 in the morning, and I was like, 'What happened?!'"
At the time, Rapp realized she'd missed two text messages sent by people in the hangout group at around 10:30 p.m., but then everyone — including her romantic interest in the friend circle — left the bar.
"I was drugged, and I had just been missing for seven hours," she said. "I stopped being friends with those people and stopped doing as much partying as I was doing. I told my parents, told some of my friends. I explained it in a very matter-of-fact way, and they were all very concerned, and I didn't even understand what was happening."
It wasn't for a few months that she was able to "really delve" into what happened that night. "I kind of started to have to deal with everything that happened, and I was just crying, so upset, very confused and then resentful of those friends that I was with," said Rapp.
Christopher Polk/Billboard via Getty
Reneé Rapp in Los Angeles in August 2023About a year later, she wrote "Snow Angel" with collaborator Alexander 23 and told him about the situation. He wasn't the only person she told the details to, but he was the first one not to make her walk back on the idea of writing the song.
"I felt nothing at all until we had recorded the song, the whole thing was done, and I played it for a bunch of my friends and my manager, and everybody was like, 'This is insane,'" added Rapp. "But for me, that whole year of my life was inherent resilience."
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
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