Olivia Rodrigo

Olivia Rodrigo
Rodrigo in 2021
Born	Olivia Isabel Rodrigo (2003-02-20) February 20, 2003 Murrieta, California, U.S.
Occupations	Singer songwriter actress
Years active	2015–present
Works	Discography songs performances
Awards	Full list
Musical career
Genres	Pop pop rock
Instruments	Vocals guitar piano
Labels	Geffen
Website	oliviarodrigo.com
Signature

Olivia Isabel Rodrigo (born February 20, 2003) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She first rose to prominence for starring on the Disney television programs Bizaardvark (2016–2019) and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (2019–2022).

Following her 2020 signing with Geffen Records, Rodrigo released her debut single, "Drivers License", which broke various records and became one of the best-selling songs of 2021, helping her achieve mainstream fame. She followed it up with the singles "Deja Vu" and "Good 4 U", and released her debut studio album, Sour, in 2021. The album earned her critical and commercial success, winning various accolades, including three Grammy Awards. A Disney+ documentary, Olivia Rodrigo: Driving Home 2 U, followed in 2022, chronicling her creative process with Sour.

In 2023, Rodrigo released her second studio album, Guts, supported by the singles "Vampire", "Bad Idea Right?", and "Get Him Back!", the former of which became her third number one single in several countries. Overall, Rodrigo has achieved three Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles, two Billboard 200 number-one albums, and five multi-platinum certifications by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Her other other accolades include an American Music Award, seven Billboard Music Awards, and three MTV Video Music Awards. Time named her the 2021 Entertainer of the Year and Billboard named her Woman of the Year in 2022.

Life and career

2003–2019: Early life and acting

Olivia Isabel Rodrigo was born on February 20, 2003, in Murrieta, California to Jennifer, a school teacher, and Chris, a family therapist. An only child, she grew up in neighboring Temecula. Rodrigo was born half-deaf in her left ear. Rodrigo is a Filipino American; her father is of Filipino descent while her mother has German and Irish ancestry. She has stated that her paternal great-grandfather emigrated from the Philippines as a teenager and her family follows Filipino traditions and cuisine. She grew up listening to her parents' favorite alternative rock music, such as the bands No Doubt, Pearl Jam, the White Stripes, and Green Day.

Rodrigo attended Lisa J. Mails Elementary School in Murrieta, participating in their after-school musical theater program. At age five, her parents signed her up for vocal lessons with Jennifer Dustman, who would begin to enroll Rodrigo in various local singing competitions. Under the advisement of Dustman her parents enrolled her in acting lessons. She began taking piano lessons at age 9. Rodrigo first became interested in songwriting after listening to country music, namely singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, and was playing guitar by age 12.

As a child actress, Rodrigo first appeared onscreen in an Old Navy commercial. In 2015, at age twelve, she made her acting debut portraying the lead role of Grace Thomas in direct-to-video film An American Girl: Grace Stirs Up Success. She attended Dorothy McElhinney Middle School in Murrieta for a year, until moving to Los Angeles after landing an acting role in Disney Channel's Bizaardvark in 2016; she was homeschooled from then until her graduation in 2021. Starring as the character Paige Olvera, a guitarist, she played the role for three seasons.

In February 2019, she was cast in the starring role of Nini Salazar-Roberts on the Disney+ series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, which premiered in November of that year. Rodrigo was praised for her performance, with Joel Keller from Decider describing her as "especially magnetic". In 2022, she left the show at the end of its third season to focus on her music career.

2020–2022: Music breakthrough and Sour

Rodrigo signed with Geffen Records in 2020. She negotiated the record deal to secure for herself ownership of the masters of her music. On January 8, 2021, she released her debut single, "Drivers License", which she co-wrote with producer Dan Nigro. Within the week of its release, "Drivers License" was critically acclaimed, and broke Spotify's record twice for most daily streams ever for a non-holiday song with over 15.7 million global streams on January 11 and over 17 million global streams the next day. It went on to break another Spotify record for the first song in history to hit 80 million streams in 7 days. The song debuted at number one on Billboard Hot 100, and reached number-one in numerous other countries. Rodrigo stated in an interview that "It's been the absolute craziest week of my life ... My entire life just, like, shifted in an instant."

On April 1, 2021, Rodrigo released her follow-up single, "Deja Vu", which debuted at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the first artist to debut their first two releases in the top 10 of the Hot 100. The third single preceding her debut album, "Good 4 U", followed on May 14, 2021, and became her second single to debut at number one on the Hot 100. Sour, her debut studio album, was released on May 21, 2021, to critical acclaim. Slate's Chris Molanphy said its first three singles alone established Rodrigo's "early status as Gen-Z's most versatile new artist". According to Clash critic Robin Murray, Rodrigo is regarded as one of Generation Z's finest artists, while Variety dubbed her "the voice of her generation" in its cover story of Rodrigo. Sour debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart and spent a total of five weeks at the spot, becoming the longest reigning number-one album by a female artist in 2021.

Rodrigo performing at Massey Hall, Toronto during her Sour Tour.

In June 2021, Rodrigo premiered Sour Prom, a prom-themed concert film on YouTube. Three days later, Time named her Entertainer of the Year. In an Instagram post on December 24, 2021, Rodrigo uploaded a snippet of a Christmas song called "The Bels" that she wrote and recorded at age five. According to Billboard, Rodrigo closed 2021 as the bestselling singles artist worldwide, while placing eight songs on the year-end Global 200 chart, including "Drivers License" at number four, "Good 4 U" at number nine, and "Deja Vu" at number 27. In the US and UK, Sour was respectively the third and fourth bestselling album of 2021. Sour and "Drivers License" were also respectively Spotify's most streamed album and song globally. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) ranked Rodrigo as the tenth best selling artist of 2021 and Sour as the second bestselling album of 2021. To support Sour, Rodrigo embarked on her debut headlining tour, the Sour Tour, which ran from April to July 2022; it included stops in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Rodrigo's Disney+ documentary film Olivia Rodrigo: Driving Home 2 U, which details the making of Sour, was released on March 25, 2022. Rodrigo received seven nominations at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist, Album of the Year for Sour, and Record of the Year and Song of the Year for "Drivers License". She won the awards for Best New Artist, Best Pop Vocal Album for Sour, and Best Pop Solo Performance for "Drivers License". In 2022, while crafting her next album, Rodrigo attended a poetry class at University of Southern California, and ended up repurposing one of her homework pieces into the song "Lacy", which would go on to appear on her sophomore album Guts.

2023–present: Guts

Rodrigo performing at Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles in 2023

Rodrigo's second album, Guts, was released on September 8, 2023; the album's lead single, "Vampire", was released on June 30. She stated that the album was about "growing pains" and figuring out who she was at this point in her life. She felt like she grew "10 years" between the ages of 18 and 20, a process she described as a natural part of "growth", which she hoped to reflect with the record. "Vampire" became her third single to debut atop the Billboard Hot 100, making her the first artist ever to debut the lead singles from two career-opening albums at No. 1 on the Hot 100. The album's second single, "Bad Idea Right?", was released on August 11, 2023, reaching the top 10 in the US and UK. On August 16, Rodrigo became the youngest artist to receive the BRIT Billion Award for achieving over one billion digital streams in the United Kingdom. On November 3, Rodrigo released the song "Can't Catch Me Now" for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.

Artistry

Influences

Rodrigo named Taylor Swift and Lorde as her idols and primary musical inspirations, and dubbed herself Swift's biggest fan "in the whole world". Rodrigo later went on to give interpolation credits to Swift and Jack Antonoff on her song "1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back" and retroactively credited Swift, Antonoff and Annie Clark on her song "Deja Vu". In 2022, she called The White Stripes band member Jack White her "hero of all heroes". Other stated influences on Rodrigo's debut album included Alanis Morissette, Kacey Musgraves, Fiona Apple, St. Vincent, Cardi B, Gwen Stefani, Avril Lavigne, and Lana Del Rey. Guts was primarily inspired by her punk and alternative rock influences, including Babes in Toyland and Rage Against the Machine.

Songwriting and voice

Rodrigo's voice type is soprano. Media outlets generally describe her as a pop artist, with songs ranging from pop rock, teen pop, and indie pop styles, as well as 1990s alternative rock. Rodrigo stated that she wants to be a songwriter and not "the biggest pop star that ever lived", and she chose to sign with Interscope/Geffen Records because its CEO John Janick praised her songwriting, not her "potential star quality". Music journalist Laura Snapes called Rodrigo a "flag-bearer" for a new wave of songwriters who incline towards power ballads "that are as emotional as ever, but project that emotion inward, trading bombast for hush", and described her musical style as rooted in heartache, mental health, and sadness, without being melodramatic, expressing more realistic perspectives than resilient.

Achievements

See also: List of awards and nominations received by Olivia Rodrigo

Rodrigo has received various music accolades, including three Grammy Awards, seven Billboard Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, four iHeartRadio Music Awards, and two People's Choice Awards; an American Music Award, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. She was placed on the 2021 edition of Time magazine's 100 Next list, and was named Time's Entertainer of the Year for 2021. Billboard also honored her with their Woman of the Year at the 2022 Billboard Women in Music event. The magazine included her on its annual 21 Under 21 list in 2021, which she topped the following year.

Rodrigo was named to lists such as the Bloomberg 50, Forbes 30 Under 30 (in the music category), and Fortune's 40 Under 40 in 2021 and 2022. She has also received "Songwriter of the Year" honors by Variety in 2021, and at the 2022 ASCAP Awards. In 2022, she was also named the top songwriter of 2021 by the music rights platform Blokur in a report sponsored by The Ivors Academy. Rodrigo was the recipient of the Storyteller of the Year award at the 2023 Variety Hitmakers ceremony.

Other activities

Philanthropy and activism

Rodrigo and her Bizaardvark co-star Madison Hu teamed up with Instagram #KindComments to encourage their fans to spread kindness and foster positivity on social media in October 2017–2018.

On April 10, 2018, Rodrigo and Hu joined other artists for My Friend's Place 30th Anniversary, a non-profit organization that helps homeless youth find shelter, food, work, education, and healthcare. The event was hosted by Jack Black and raised over $740,000 for local homeless youth. Also in 2018, Rodrigo was named an institute speaker and panelist for the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. In December that year, she became the face of "She Can STEM" campaign.

In February 2021, Rodrigo released her merchandise line, "Spicy Pisces T-shirts", on her website, with all proceeds going to Plus1 charity, benefitting She's the First which sponsors young girls' scholarship and education. In June 2021, she sold her clothes, wardrobe and all items from her music videos on Depop and 100% of all proceeds from 'Sour Shop' was donated to charitable organization. Rodrigo donated a portion of her Sour Tour platinum ticket sales to Women for Women International which supports female survivors of war by helping them rebuild their lives after war devastation. In December 2021, she joined Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, Billy Porter and more on Musicians on Call in the 2nd Annual Virtual Concert "Hope for the Holidays" to bring Christmas cheer by uplifting performances and messages of hope to hospital patients via virtual concert.

Rodrigo posing with U.S. President Joe Biden as part of a campaign promoting COVID-19 vaccinations to youth

On July 13, 2021, Rodrigo was involved in a White House effort to promote COVID-19 vaccinations among young people in the U.S. She met with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci, to discuss her efforts. CNN reported that Rodrigo would record videos about the importance of young people getting vaccinated, including answering questions the youth have regarding the vaccination.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, Rodrigo performed "Fuck You", with British singer Lily Allen, at Glastonbury Festival. She prefaced the performance by dedicating it to the associate justices who voted to overturn Roe, saying "I'm devastated and terrified. So many women and so many girls are going to die because of this. I wanted to dedicate this next song to the five members of the Supreme Court who have showed us that at the end of the day, they truly don't give a shit about freedom. The song is for the justices."

On November 20, 2022, Rodrigo joined Billie Eilish, John Legend, Tom Holland, and more with co-founders Eddie Vedder and Jill Vedder for the Third Annual Venture Fundraising event and helped raise more than $1.3 million that month and $6 million for the last 3 years to find a cure for epidermolysis bullosa and other rare diseases. In December 2022, Rodrigo with Chris Stapleton, Selena Gomez and more donated exclusive items to the 2nd Annual ASCAP Foundation which supports music education and talent development programs across the U.S. In the same month, Rodrigo took part in that year's annual virtual concert, 'Musicians on Call' with 30 different artists which brought holiday classic performances and videos of messages of hope to patients, families and health-workers in more than 5,000 hospitals nationwide.

In January 2023, Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, and J-Hope of BTS donated items to the MusiCares Foundation Charity Relief Auction to help struggling musicians with their medical bills and other financial needs.

Products and endorsements

Rodrigo was announced as brand ambassador of the phone accessory company Casetify, under a year-long partnership, in December 2021. She creative directed the "Hardened Hearts" phone case collection, which was inspired by her debut album Sour and the '90s and Y2K visual aesthetics. She became consumer beauty brand Glossier's first ever celebrity partner in April 2022. Rodrigo collaborated with Sony Electronics to release a special edition of their true wireless Linkbuds S earbuds in September 2023. She and Health-Ade introduced the "Good 4 Ur Guts" smoothie in December 2023—which was available in Erewhon Market stores through January 14, 2024.

Discography

Main articles: Olivia Rodrigo discography and List of songs recorded by Olivia Rodrigo

• Sour (2021)
• Guts (2023)

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Ref.
2015	An American Girl: Grace Stirs Up Success	Grace Thomas	Direct-to-video film
2021	Sour Prom	Herself	Concert film
2022	Olivia Rodrigo: Driving Home 2 U	Herself	Documentary film

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Ref.
2016–2019	Bizaardvark	Paige Olvera	Main role
2017	New Girl	Terrinea	Episode: "Young Adult"
2019–2022	High School Musical: The Musical: The Series	Nini Salazar-Roberts	Main role (seasons 1–2); recurring (season 3)
2019	High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: The Special	Herself / Nini Salazar-Roberts	Documentary special
2020	The Disney Family Singalong	Herself	Television special
2020	High School Musical: The Musical: The Holiday Special	Herself / Nini Salazar-Roberts	Holiday special
2021, 2023	Saturday Night Live	Herself	Musical guest; 2 episodes

Tours

Main article: List of Olivia Rodrigo live performances

• Sour Tour (2022)
• Guts World Tour (2024)

See also

• List of artists who reached number one in the United States

External links

• Official website
• Olivia Rodrigo at IMDb