For fans attending a signing for Miley Cyrus’s new single in London last week, the thought of coming face to face with their idol was too exciting to bear. But according to social media users, these meetings ended up being a let down, as they accused the “Wrecking Ball” singer of “ignoring” fans at the event in order to chat with supermodel Naomi Campbell. Was the backlash deserved, or simply “forced outrage”?

The two famous women were both in London to celebrate the release of “Every Girl You’ve Ever Loved”, a single featuring Naomi features from Miley’s new album Something Beautiful. The first 100 people at Rough Trade were given the chance to meet Miley and get their vinyls signed; but following the signing, a number of posts swirled on X and TikTok claiming that Miley and Naomi had spent all their time talking to each other and had ignored their fans in the process.

In Miley’s Instagram post from the signing, the former Disney Channel star wrote: “Thank you to everyone who showed up to the signing, we adored meeting you,” while also thanking Campbell. However, the comment section beneath the post was flooded with accusations of Miley being rude to her fans. “Sorry to everyone who went and got a photo with them talking to one another,” one commenter wrote. “Absolutely shocking behaviour of you pair on the signing… These are your fans Miley, they can quickly change their minds,” another raged, with one comment echoing: “Girl you were very rude to your fans at this signing.”

The allegations against Miley come at a time when the relationships between pop stars and their stans feel particularly fraught. Major discussions on the subject came about when, following her seemingly overnight rise to fame last summer, Chappell Roan called out “creepy” fan behaviour online. In a TikTok video, she said: “If you saw a random woman on the street, would you yell at her from your car window? Would you harass her in public? Would you go up to a random lady and say, ‘Can I take a photo with you?’ and she says, ‘No, what the f**k?’ and then you get mad at this random lady?”

While Chappell was praised by many of her fellow musicians for establishing her boundaries, she found herself at the centre of major online discourse, where her critics called her ungrateful or suggested she shouldn’t have become a musician if she couldn’t handle fame. However, it apparently worked; Chappell, who has bipolar disorder, says that fans barely approach her since her comments, and suggested other artists should also be frank about what they will and will not stand for. Chappell, whose real name is Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, made it clear that she was fine with being approached while she was dressed up “in drag” and about to perform. So while many criticised her comments, they did spark discussion about the relationship between artists and their fans: what the performer owes the fan, and when they owe it to them.

Of course, a record store signing, where a fan has purchased a vinyl record and waited in line to get it signed, is the sort of event you would reasonably expect an artist to dedicate their full attention to their fans at. But reading the accusatory comments under Miley’s post, it only takes a few clicks to realise that most of these commenters are from people who are not based in London and appear not to have attended the signing in person themselves.

Instead, they mostly are referencing clips from the event’s live stream that were shared online. Miley and Naomi are seen deep in conversation, which they only pause to smile for a photo and say a brief greeting before the fan is moved along. This footage doesn’t paint the stars in the greatest of lights – as a former fan girl myself, I know an interaction like this would have been painful. But it reminds us of an unfortunate fact: that fan interactions are a once in a lifetime moment to the fan, while to the artist, they’re one of many in a line. If the star is even slightly off their A-game, a fan on the receiving end may be disappointed.

But while these clips were shared widely, many of those who did attend the event took to social media to share their positive experiences of meeting Miley, with one fan account on X writing that she “cried tears of joy”. Other attendees suggested that clips from the live stream, cannot account for the excitable temperature in the room. As one commenter retorted: “She signed the vinyl and gave it away, the photo was a bonus for the free event, it wasn’t a concert, it wasn’t an M&G, it wasn’t a ‘have a cup of tea and talk to Miley’ if you’re coming here from a video on X, where THERE IS NOT A PROBLEM, mind your own business. No Miley fans complained about the event, only the dumbs on X with absurd tweets.”

That’s not to invalidate the experiences of any attendees who did have a less good experience at Miley’s signing. It’s frustrating when an interaction with a celebrity doesn’t turn out like you imagined it in your head, but stars are humans just like us, and have off days too. Post Chappell’s comments, we’re more likely to believe these negative narratives about celebrities being rude to their fans, but often these situations are far more nuanced than we realise. Rather than leaping to assumptions and jumping into the comment section to accuse others of being ungrateful, taking a moment to read around and consider whether this is what we actually think, or simply want to believe, does everyone good.