Reneé Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion’s “Not My Fault” Is Giving Gay Regina George

I hadn’t considered how gay the iconic Mean Girls line “it’s not my fault you’re like in love with me” was until it rolled off of Reneé Rapp’s lips.

To be fair, the deciding factor maaaaaaybe wasn’t just the voice over in the opening seconds into her newest single with Megan thee Stallion — “Not My Fault” of the upcoming Mean Girls Musical soundtrack — though it certainly didn’t hurt!

Instead, it maybe came from the matching “it’s not my fault you’re like in love with me” captions that both Meg and Reneé left on their Instagrams this week to hype the song’s highly anticipated release. But still, points were made!!

The newly revamped Mean Girls hits theaters on January 12th, just a little shy of the 20 year anniversary of the original. It’s based on the original film’s Broadway musical adaptation. All of which is to say, there simply could not be a better Regina George than Reneé Rapp.

Besides being recorded by two hot bisexual stars, “Not My Fault” also has some winks for what’s apparently a long-standing theory — though unbeknownst to me before this week — which is that Regina George is a lesbian??

In the second verse Rapp hits us with:

“Get her number, get her name
Get a good thing while you can
Kiss a blonde (Kiss a blonde), kiss a friend (Okay)
Can a gay girl get an, “Amen?”

Amen. For her part, Meg follows up with “I been told y’all, I’m the black Regina George.”

Rapp (who, by the way, also played the best villain to ever stomp through hallways in pink during the show’s Broadway run) amped up this queer reading Regina last week when she captioned her Instagram with a real direct “regina george was a lesbian”… so yeah, not a lot of room for misinterpretation there!

Now, do I think Reneé Rapp was just making a little tee-hee gay joke with her fans? Yes, yes I do. But it also means that the queer actor playing Regina understands her to be gay, and I can’t wait to see how that interpretation ultimately plays into her performance.

According to a deep dive by Diva Magazine, it appears the “Regina George is a lesbian” train first took off in 2021, by @lizzie.mchigher on TikTok, who in particular has a lot of very interesting things to say about Regina’s relationship with Mean Girl’s noted lesbian outcast Janis Ian and Regina’s own internalized homophobia. Later, in 2022, a fan held up a sign that said “Regina Is a Lesbian” during one of Reneé Rapp’s concerts and she responded, “She is! It’s so true, and I heard that from God. He told me.”

@lizzie.mchigher

💖 #meangirls #girlsgaysandtheys

♬ Bomb Intro / Pass That Dutch – Missy Elliott

It’s still a few weeks before the new Mean Girls release, where we can see Regina’s positively affirmed lesbian era for ourselves. Until then, here’s “Not My Fault.” When we started the pink revolution for Barbie over the summer, I didn’t realize that deep into winter we’d still be here. But fuck it! Pink forever.

Let it catch on like Fetch never could.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!

Carmen Phillips

Carmen Phillips is Autostraddle's former editor in chief. She began at Autostraddle in 2017 as a freelance team writer and worked her way up through the company, eventually becoming the EIC from 2021-2024. A Black Puerto Rican feminist writer with a PhD in American Studies from New York University, Carmen specializes in writing about Blackness, race, queerness, politics, culture, and the many ways we find community and connection with each other.  During her time at Autostraddle, Carmen focused on pop culture, TV and film reviews, criticism, interviews, and news analysis. She claims many past homes, but left the largest parts of her heart in Detroit, Brooklyn, and Buffalo, NY. And there were several years in her early 20s when she earnestly slept with a copy of James Baldwin’s “Fire Next Time” under her pillow. To reach out, you can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram, or her website.

Carmen has written 716 articles for us.

2 Comments

Contribute to the conversation...

Yay! You've decided to leave a comment. That's fantastic. Please keep in mind that comments are moderated by the guidelines laid out in our comment policy. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation and thanks for stopping by!