Pop
Olivia Rodrigo found solace in music during her lonely childhood
Olivia Rodrigo - who has seen her new album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, break streaming records as it tops the charts all over the world - has opened up about her lonely childhood as an actress who was homeschooled.
Olivia Rodrigo was a "very lonely" child and so music became her companion and her "refuge".
The 23-year-old singer was a talented singer and musician as a youngster and she went on to have acting lessons appearing in and Old Navy commercial when she was seven and then landing a starring role when she was in her early teens in Disney Channel series Bizaardvark in 2016, in which she played Paige Olvera, a guitarist.
After landing her role in Bizaardvark - which also starred a young Jake Paul - Olivia was homeschooled by her parents, school teacher Jennifer and family therapist Chris, until she graduated in 2021 and it was music that became her solace.
In an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, she said: "I spent so much of my childhood alone. I was homeschooled, I'm an only child, I was a child actor, which is a very lonely way to grow up.
"I think that's why I love music so much, is because in those quiet, lonely moments growing up, music is just your refuge. And I think that's not an experience that's unique to me. Obviously, I think so many kids feel that way, they just feel misunderstood.”
Olivia's new album you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love is a heart-breaking account with the first seven tracks following a whirlwind of love and infatuation, while the remaining six explore the spiraling demise of a relationship.
Weeks before its release, fans speculated online with one fan commenting: “OK EVERYBODY STAY CALM. ITS HAPPENING” as Olivia took to Instagram, leaving a pink lock in four different cities: Los Angeles, London, Paris and New Jersey, revealing her first single Drop Dead.
Following on, Olivia released her second single The Cure - which is both a nod to her love of Robert Smith's band of the same name and exploring the truth that another person can be responsible for your happiness.
Smith also duets with Olivia on the track What's Wrong with Me and the singer/songwriter says the British indie band are a huge part of the Rodrigo household.
She said: "I saw The Cure with my dad and we were just holding each other singing Pictures of You, and I’m like, 'This is so beautiful,' we’re just crying.
“That’s just a thing in my family. We’re very, very emotional when it comes to music, it’s sort of our thing."
Olivia Rodrigo went on to discuss how on her single The Cure she wanted to encapsulate the grief of heart-break, exploring the conflicting feelings of romance, and how that track ended up inspiring the entire record.
She said: "I think I'd been trying to write that song for a really long time. And I was having a conversation with my friend about it. I think it was the nexus of the entire album is this conversation that I had with one of my friends. And I was like, 'I want to write this record about love. It's supposed to be at love. I have all these love songs that I just love and I'm in this relationship that is 'happy.' why do I feel so depressed? Why can't I feel how I think it's supposed to feel in my head?'
"And we just had this conversation and after we had that conversation, I went home and wrote The Cure. And I think that songwriting for me is best done when you're a little bit afraid to write it. And I think having written that song, I learned so much about myself, which is not always the case in every song. And I think I could never have written that song on Guts or never have written that song on Sour. I think that I had to have a lot of life experience and look really deeply inward in a way that 17-year-old-me couldn't have done. I think in Sour or maybe in Guts a little bit, and just being a teenager, you look at love like black and white. You're like, 'This person hurt me and I hate them.' Or like, 'I love this person. They're the best person to ever exist.' And I think this record for me and also there's this period of time in my life is me playing in the gray area a little bit more."
You can watch the full episode of Olivia Rodrigo on The Zane Lowe Show HERE or anytime on demand with an Apple Music subscription HERE.
