She’s one of the biggest new pop stars out of America, midway through a sold-out Australian tour – but Renee Rapp was able to pass through Sydney Airport apparently unnoticed this week.
The 26-year-old singer and actress cut a low-key figure in dark glasses, a tracksuit and an oversized handbag as she arrived at Sydney Airport from Brisbane on Wednesday.
The night before, she’d played the first show of her Australian tour at Brisbane’s Riverstage, playing all 12 songs from her recently released sophomore album Bite Me as well as a smattering of tracks from her 2023 debut Snow Angel.
The tour continues with two shows at Sydney’s Hordern Pavillion, tonight and tomorrow.
Rapp’s Aussie visit coincides with her surprise appearance on this year’s Triple J Hottest 100 last weekend.
Her spiky pop-rock single Leave Me Alone came in at number 77 on the countdown – perhaps the first time a star has made the move from Broadway musicals to Triple J.
Rapp shot to fame in 2019 playing the role of Regina George in the Broadway production of Tina Fey’s Mean Girls; a role she reprised for the 2024 big screen adaptation of the musical.
Rapp also starred in the popular TV show The Sex Lives of College Girls across three seasons from 2021, but later said that the show had turned her off acting and she wanted to instead focus on her music career.
Rumours swirled that on-set conflict had caused Rapp’s surprise departure from the show – she later told the LA Times that those years of her acting career involved being “down to take s — and let things hurt my feelings and not speak up against them, necessarily.”
She told the outlet that her acting had been a vehicle for what she really craved: pop stardom.
And her renewed musical focus paid off: While her debut album charted outside the top 40 here and in the US, follow-up Bite Me debuted at number three in both countries, and was a number one album in the UK.
Originally published as US pop star Renee Rapp sneaks into Sydney during Australian tour
