IIn the space of just two weeks, three Disney stars, young and old, have been engulfed in their bizarre love triangle.
On January 7, Olivia Rodrigo, known for her acting and singing at Disney’s Bizaardvark and Disney + s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, ‘driver’s license’ released, a sad song that not only immediately reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, but also twice broke Spotify’s record for most daily streams of a non-holiday song. The song quickly became an overnight phenomenon, with TikTok users creating millions of videos recreating the music video or explaining the drama behind it.
The background story of the song, which was ripped out of its head, only contributed to the audience’s obsession. Rodrigo has been a fan of Taylor Swift since she was a kid, and Swift’s songwriting style clearly inspired Rodrigo, who explored specific details of her life, to tell the universal story of lost love. “I got my driver’s license last week, just like we always talked about it, because you were so excited about it that I would finally drive to your house,” she sings and later crowns to see the guy everywhere, especially in all the white cars. Fans quickly took to it, pointing out that Rodrigo said in an interview that her former flame (and High School Musical Joshua Bassett taught her how to drive in his white car.
But perhaps the most telling lyrics come when Rodrigo sings: ‘I’m sure you’re with that blonde girl, who always made me doubt / she’s so much older than me, she’s all I’m unsure about’, because as it turns out, Bassett wash recently seen with a blonde girl who is ‘so much older’ – four years, which for a 17-year-old like Rodrigo is virtually a decade.
Tap Sabrina Carpenter, recording artist and star of Girl meets the world and Netflix’s Work it out. She is the rumored ‘blonde girl’ because she and Bassett were spotted with Black Lives Matter protests during the summer and eating out in California – a year after Bassett allegedly wrote a love song about Rodrigo in his Salt Lake City. Anybody Else’s apartment during filming HSMTMTS, with which Rodrigo nods: “I think you did not mean what you wrote about me in that song” in ‘driver’s license’. Rodrigo and Bassett seem to be on good terms at the end of April, when Rodrigo likes Bassett’s tweet and insists that his followers ‘remind someone that you love them now’. But in August, Rodrigo posted on TikTok about ‘failed relationships’.
In an attempt to tell her side of the story, the 21-year-old Carpenter released ‘Skin’ last week, which does not have any self-awareness, especially as she is the oldest in this situation. On “Skin” she sings, “Maybe we can pretend that there is no seriousness in the words we write / Maybe you did not mean it, maybe ‘blonde’ was the only rhyme, ‘and then later,’ You can trying to get under me, under me, under my skin / While on mine. Then Bassett praised the song on his Instagram and wrote: “stuck in my head since I heard it !!!”
Oh, and Bassett also has a song. It’s called ‘Lie Lie Lie’, and although he wrote on his Instagram Story that it’s about a ‘friend’, fans think it’s about Rodrigo. In it, he sings, “So you tell them it’s all my fault / you’re the victim this time,” and in the accompanying music video, Bassett hangs out of a car window reflecting what Rodrigo is doing in her music video.
Both Rodrigo and Carpenter quoted Lorde and Swift as inspiration for songwriting – “Taylor Swift is my songwriting god and I would not be half the woman and songwriter I am today without her,” Rodrigo told NME. Carpenter said in an interview: “I think Lorde is an incredible lyricist and someone I always look up to and also musically, she does so her own thing in her own career.” As for Bassett, he says John Mayer is his inspiration.
Somehow all three artists, by the grace of God or good publicists or possibly both, released their own song about the love triangle within two weeks. Not only that, but Rodrigo and Bassett apparently put their hatred aside while promoting HSMTM: The Holiday Special in December, and even praised each other’s productive songwriting skills.
‘Somehow all three artists, by the grace of God or good publicists or possibly both, released their own song about the love triangle within two weeks.”
Rodrigo, Bassett and Carpenter are far from the first young lovebirds to put their real drama on the line. In 2008, an 18-year-old Swift entered into The Ellen Show to tell the host and her millions of viewers that Joe Jonas, the young man, is apart in a 25-second call with her, and that she wrote a song about it – ‘Forever and Always’, which aired on her Grammy- award was album Fearless. There were also other songs, like ‘Better Than Revenge’, where Swift sang about another girl who stole her boyfriend. ‘She’s not a saint and she’s not what you think, she’s an actress. She’s better known for the things she does on the mattress, ‘Swift sang. The Jonas Brothers got another shot with ‘Much Better’, which nodded to Swift and all the ‘tears on her guitar’ and how ‘much better’ the new girl was. The rumored ‘much better’ girl was actress Camilla Belle, who does not write songs, so maybe we will never know her side of the story. (However, if Swift receives bad press, Belle usually tweets.)
Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake also played this game with ‘Cry Me A River’ and ‘Everytime’. But the supposed other man in this situation, Wade Robson, was just a dancer, so he never got his chance to sing the blues or throw a Spears appearance in a music video. Hilary Duff, Lindsay Lohan and Aaron Carter commented on each other in the press and further. SNL about their love triangle, but when it comes to songs, there was actually just always Duff’s “Haters,” where she sang, “You say your boyfriend is so sweet and friendly / but you watched mine.”
Rodrigo may not have gotten the guy in the end, but she done Swift received approval. “I say it’s my baby and I’m very proud,” Swift commented on Rodrigo’s Instagram photo.