Rene Rapp wants to burn out by the age of 30 – and everything goes according to plan

Renee Rapp has a plan: she will burn out by the age of 30.

The 23-year-old Broadway star, television actor and musician would never recommend this to anyone, but this is her vision.

You can learn about Rapp from TikTok, where she has over a million followers, or her performances on Broadway, or the Jimmy Awards, a major school theater competition. Maybe you also know her from TV. But she says it all serves her true passion: her solo music career.

Rapp wanted to first build a follower base and credibility – a built-in audience to get the attention of agents and labels. It all came together last summer when she launched her long-awaited solo career with the single “Tattoos” and the debut EP that followed. All for all. When tickets for her tour went on sale, they sold out almost immediately.

People were paying attention, and her master plan was going right on schedule.

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Act 1: Musicals

For Rapp, it has always been music.

“Ever since I was born or, for example, thought, I have always known that being an artist, musician and songwriter is exactly what I want to do,” she told NPR. “And I was very determined to do whatever I had to do to get to that point.”

Rapp has always been on stage, performing in local musicals in her hometown of Huntersville, North Carolina. She didn’t like it, but she never turned down an opportunity to perform.

“I’ve just always been more into pop artists and pop music. And, for example, Beyoncé was more interesting to me than, for example, Fun we roll.”

Rapp used these opportunities as a stepping stone.

Everything was planned: transfer to art school halfway through high school to hopefully take part in the Jimmy Awards; be seen by agents; work on Broadway; get a job; and get the opportunity to finally start a solo musical career. And it worked.

Rapp performing at the 2018 Jimmy Awards

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Rapp received the 2018 Jimmy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Sandra Bloom in the film Big fish. The right people took notice, and in 2019 she starred as Regina George in Mean Girls on Broadway until the show was canceled due to the pandemic.

Act 2: Television

Soon after Mean Girls wrapped, Rapp landed a role on the hit HBO series Sexual life of female studentswhich had just been renewed for a third season.

Rapp plays Leighton Murray, a judging ice blonde who spent most of the first season in the closet. (Judgmental, icy and blond also aptly describes her Broadway heroine, Regina George.)

In what Rapp dislikes, she identifies a lot with her character Layton, who has struggled to accept her sexuality. Now Rapp is openly bisexual, but she feels that some moments of her childhood limited her ability to get to this place.


For Rapp, the goal has always been a solo music career.

Erica Hernandez


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Erica Hernandez


For Rapp, the goal has always been a solo music career.

Erica Hernandez

“I heard a lot of homophobic things like very ignorant comments,” she said. “And I was also such a criminal in these things. For example, I was so homophobic towards myself when I was a kid, to the point where I didn’t open up to anyone and I was kind of judgmental.”

“I did it…and so did Layton.”

But exploring those similarities also allowed Rapp to evaluate herself in a way she couldn’t have done without the character’s challenge.

“The first season was the hardest six months of my life. It was extremely hard emotionally for many reasons,” she said. “It forced me to face a lot of things that I didn’t want to face, but then I had to. And so not only did I feel more comfortable with who I am, I also saw a lot of… ugly parts of myself that I didn’t want to see, and then I had to deal with them.”

Act 3: Glory and fans

Jumping from musicals to television and music, Rapp was afraid that she would not be taken seriously.

“That was my big fear. But I think I’m someone who wears everything on my sleeve, like my emotions, how I feel, whatever, my personality,” she said. “So I think I hope it’s going to be really hard for people not to take me seriously because I’m pretty aggressive and pretty delusional.”

If not for her penchant for delusions, Rapp might not exist. And at every stage of her plan, she made sure that she was looked at. Rapp attributes her music career to amassing a fan base even before she quit any music.

“I am very spoiled. I am very lucky to have found an amazing community around me,” she said. “I feel like I am the biggest fan of my fans… They are very loyal. And I think we found a lot of comfort in each other.”

She built a base, but has donned so many hats over the past few years that her fans still recognize her. TikTok comments on past videos are filled with comments like “I didn’t know you were Leighton Murray!” or “Just found out that Jimmy won??”

“I feel like this is my multiverse of insanity,” Rapp said. “It’s a little fun, a little fun, a little crazy, a little confusing, a little sad, but very hot.”

When she teased her single “Tattoos” on TikTok last summer, her fans went berserk, demanding that she release the full version of the song.

Rapp said it was the first song she decided to release on social media, but she never thought she would actually release it to the world. That was until she saw how popular he had become. Then the labels began to pay attention.

She entered the final stage of Rapp’s master plan.

“Once I had numbers on the net that were easily digestible by the music people, they were like, ‘Oh, people really want to listen to this.’ But what is even more interesting, I even the first time was something like, “Oh, people really want to listen,” she said.

The relationship with her fans allowed the process of writing and releasing music to become a two-way street, and it was ultimately what got her signed.

“I’ve been trying to get signed to a major label since I was 16, and every time I had meetings when I was a kid, I was always like, ‘Oh, we don’t quite get you. “I really don’t feel like people care.” Of course, I didn’t know myself at that moment, so I don’t feel anything,” she said. “I think those situations really made me stronger.”

“But this craving for this video eventually led to my signing. So my fans signed me up. I credit them with my career.”

Act 4: Rebirth

Rapp’s music helped her rethink her image and sense of self.

FROM On the kitchen is her most popular song, and also the most beloved of the songs she wrote, Rapp explains a very specific period in her life. It was about a painful breakup, but that in the end there was something more.

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“This song makes me feel like I like to shed the skin that people knew me by,” she said. Because everyone knew me [the people] who knew me – in the days of Broadway, in a very specific relationship, in a very specific way that I introduced myself.

“And a lot of it had to do with the fact that I was trying to make myself smaller so that someone would be comfortable. And in many ways it was like pleasing people. And this happens not only in this situation. On the kitchen, it was similar to what I did with this. I’ve had enough.”

Rapp already had a career to rival many divas. With no plan to stop, she risks burning out. But that’s the point.

“My plan is to burn out by 30,” she said. “In the sense that I want to go through some eras … in a hot way.”

“I want to live as a rock star for a while, and then I want to, like, move to Colorado for a second, have kids, come back, and then dominate and start directing and producing and making my own music.”

“I just really want to be Beyoncé.”

Ashley Brown edited the audio interview. Patrick Wood edited this article.

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