Songfacts®:

• It's often said that what goes around comes around, a sentiment Chappell Roan seems to have taken to heart in "My Kink Is Karma," a track from her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. This isn't just any song about payback; it's a cheeky, rhythmic exploration of the cosmic comeuppance we all secretly hope awaits those who've wronged us, otherwise known as schadenfreude.
• The title is a playful twist on the familiar pop-culture phrase "my kink is..." which typically hints at someone's quirky, unconventional desires. But here it's not leather or lace that gets Roan going - it's the sweet, inevitable justice of karma. She's not just crossing her fingers for the universe to balance the scales; she's practically reveling in the thought that her ex-lover's misdeeds will boomerang back in spectacular fashion.
• You ruin your life
  You losing your mind
  You dyeing your hair
  
  Roan captures the essence of post-breakup turbulence, the kind that leaves you reaching for a box of hair dye as if a new color might wash away old memories. It's a feeling Roan knows all too well. Reflecting in a track-by-track video, she said: "You know like when you break up a lot of times you'll just want an immediate change like a piercing or you cut your hair or you dye your hair or something. It's relatable."
  
  Roan added that during the pandemic, she was going through some issues and found herself grasping for change, so she dyed her hair blonde in a bid for self-care.
• Chappell Roan teamed up with pop songwriter Justin Tranter - best known for hits like Justin Bieber's "Sorry" and Selena Gomez' "Good For You" - and her producer Dan Nigro to write "My Kink is Karma." But, as Roan revealed in her track-by-track video, the collaboration didn't exactly start off on the right foot.
  
  "At first, I literally walked out of the session," she confessed. "I was like, 'This is the dumbest thing ever.' I hated it. I thought, 'This is so tasteless.' But then, that's kind of my process - I hate every song I write at first, and then, over time, I grow to love it."
  
  Despite her initial doubts, Roan eventually found the song to be surprisingly cathartic. "It was just so fun to make up little things and just kind of list them and it's so cathartic actually performing it because it is like a release of all of these things that I really despised about my ex and it just feels so good to like get that out with the audience."
• "My Kink Is Karma" was the only track on The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess that Tranter contributed to, but the following year, he and Nigro rejoined forces with Roan to create her breakout hit, "Good Luck, Babe!."
• In the fiery track, Chappell Roan leans into bitterness, reveling in her ex's misfortunes. Although Roan initially wrote the song to help her process the breakup, performing it night after night forces her to reconnect with those raw emotions, making it difficult to truly move on.
  
  "You have to lock into different characters for each song. Especially like 'My Kink Is Karma,' I'm less worried about hitting the notes rather than just screaming as hard as I can," she said on the Las Culturistas podcast. "I actually still feel pissed. I don't know if I'll ever get over it. I don't know if I'll ever not be mad."
  
  When co-host Bowen Yang asked if the song had trapped her in that feeling, Roan agreed. "Yeah, and that's what's so hard about writing about exes - you're locked in, especially if you hate them," she explained. "I get angry every time I sing it. It's real! It's very real."