A Viral Song of Pride

Katelyn MacDonald’s church bell performance blends music, identity and self-expression

A portrait of Katelyn MacDonald
Three videos of Katelyn MacDonald, a Staff Specialist at Duke University Chapel, playing Chappell Roan on the church bells at Duke Memorial United Methodist Church in June 2024 have a combined 17 million views. Photo by Travis Stanley

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Last June, Katelyn MacDonald approached her Duke University Chapel supervisor, Zebulon Highben, to fill him in on something happening in her personal life.

“Um, just so you know, I’m going massively viral,” MacDonald said.

MacDonald, a Staff Specialist at the Chapel, plays the church bells for Duke Memorial United Methodist Church, a Durham church not affiliated with Duke University. At the start of Pride Month, MacDonald wanted to show her support for fellow LGBTQ community members.

So, she rang out Chappell Roan’s “HOT TO GO!” on the majestic bells that echo along West Chapel Hill Street near the Durham Freeway. Roan, a queer musical artist, won Best New Artist at the 2025 Grammys. MacDonald recorded herself playing the song, then went off to choir rehearsal.

A couple hours later, MacDonald’s phone began to go off. Someone in a nearby apartment complex had recorded the ringing and posted it on TikTok – where views already were piling up. Within two hours, the video had 30,000 views. MacDonald posted two behind-the-scenes videos, too.

Nearly a year later, the three TikTok videos have almost a combined 17 million views.

“It feels a little unreal to think that 17 million people have seen and heard me doing something – including Chappell Roan,” MacDonald said of the video that Roan reposted.

For MacDonald, a transgender woman, it was an important moment to express her support for LGBTQ people in a uniquely personal way.

“You can speak to a lot of things through the bells that you can’t necessarily speak to in other ways, but that are heard by a lot of people,” said MacDonald, 34. “I use it as a form of self-expression and as a spiritual discipline.”

MacDonald grew up around both the church, where her mother is a Methodist minister, and music, earning a bachelor’s degree in music with a focus on saxophone. She began attending Duke Divinity School in 2018, and during the pandemic spent time deeply pondering her gender identity. Shortly after she graduated with her master’s degree, she came out as transgender.

She has played the bells at Duke Memorial United Methodist since 2023, and most often plays traditional hymns. But she also enjoys adding more contemporary songs with meaning – on Juneteenth, she played songs by civil rights activist Nina Simone; on Election Day, she played “This Land Is Your Land.”

So, MacDonald playing Chappell Roan on the church bells during Pride Month in June wasn’t unexpected, even if her viral moment of expression was.

“We were all on the sidelines saying, ‘Go Katelyn,’” said Highben, Director of Chapel Music, “because it was just really pretty cool. Most people don’t think of Chappell Roan and church bells in the same sentence, so it was a neat blending of two musical cultures.”

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