Rachel Platten wishes she’d handled the political spotlight of “Fight Song” better: “I was terrified”

Specifically, Rachel says, she was afraid of taking any sort of political stance, because she was still a new artist and was afraid of the backlash.

“They chose my song and I did not choose that,” she tells Esquire. “Fame was so new to me, the little fame that I had was so new to me after 15 years of trying, but I was so terrified it could be taken away.”

“I was terrified to speak up and say anything…I literally said to my publicist, ‘I’m scared and I don’t want to be hated or blamed.’ It was very cowardly of me,” Rachel admits.

“I have empathy for the girl that I was, who was scared, but now if I had been in that situation I would take the f***ing mic and be like, ‘I’m glad I have your ears. This is what we need to do,'” she insists.

“I didn’t then and I think that part of that choice made it so that people don’t even know who sings ‘Fight Song,’” she reveals. “A lot of them think that Kelly Clarkson sang it or that Taylor Swift sang it, because I was so afraid to stand up and be known, that I almost made myself a little bit more invisible than I had to be.”

Now, four years later, Rachel’s released an uplifting new song called “Soldiers.“

“Why aren’t more people speaking up, why aren’t there more songs right now helping us?” she asks. “We need to use our art right now, because I truly believe beauty can save the world.”

By Andrea Dresdale
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