Olivia Isabel Rodrigo (born February 20, 2003) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She first became known for starring on the Disney Channel series Bizaardvark (2016–2019) and the Disney+ series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (2019–2022). Shifting focus onto her recording career, Rodrigo signed with Geffen Records to release her 2021 single, “Drivers License”, which peaked atop the US Billboard Hot 100 and raised her to international prominence. Her debut studio album, Sour (2021), was released in May of that year; it spawned her second number-one song, “Good 4 U”, and won her three Grammy Awards. The documentary Olivia Rodrigo: Driving Home 2 U followed in 2022, which chronicles the creative process of Sour. The following year, she released her second studio album, Guts (2023).
Overall, Rodrigo has released three Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles, two Billboard 200 number-one albums, and eight multi-platinum songs by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Her accolades include an American Music Award, seven Billboard Music Awards, and four MTV Video Music Awards. She was recognized as Time’s Entertainer of the Year in 2021, Billboard’s Woman of the Year in 2022, and has twice been awarded “Songwriter of the Year” at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards in 2022 and 2024.
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 neighbouring Temecula. Rodrigo was born half-deaf in her left ear. Rodrigo is half-Filipina and identifies as Filipino American. Her paternal grandparents and great-grand parents emigrated from the Philippines, and her family follows Filipino traditions and cuisine. Her mother has German and Irish ancestry. She grew up listening to her parents’ favourite 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 theatre program. At age five, her parents signed her up for vocal lessons with Jennifer Dustman, who would begin to enrol 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 songs by Taylor Swift, and was playing guitar by age 12. In 2010, at age seven, she first appeared onscreen in an Old Navy commercial.
In 2015, at age twelve, Rodrigo 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 home schooled 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”. For the series, Rodrigo wrote and performed the promotional single “All I Want”, released in November 2019. She left the show at the end of its third season to focus on her music career.
2020–2022: Sour
Rodrigo during the Sour Tour in 2022
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 the US 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 US 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.
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 Guts, 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 the album’s track list.
2023–present: Guts
Rodrigo performing at Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles in 2023
On August 16, 2023, Rodrigo became the youngest artist to receive the BRIT Billion Award for achieving over one billion digital streams in the United Kingdom. She was the 19th artist to receive a BRIT Billion Award. Rodrigo’s second album, Guts was released on September 8, 2023, and debuted atop the Billboard 200. She stated that the album was about “growing pains” and self-discovery. Going into the album cycle, she felt that she had grown “ten years” between the ages of 18 and 20. Guts received critical acclaim from various outlets and was later declared by BBC News as the most critically acclaimed album of 2023. The album’s lead single, “Vampire”, was released on June 30, becoming Rodrigo’s 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 October 9, 2023, Rodrigo performed songs from Guts in an exclusive concert in partnership with American Express at Los Angeles Theatre at Ace Hotel, all proceeds from ticket sales went to her Fund 4 Good non-profit organization. On October 18, 2023, Rodrigo announced that the four secret tracks released on limited vinyl editions of Guts would be released as a limited vinyl-exclusive EP to commemorate Record Store Day (RSD) Black Friday. The EP Guts: The Secret Tracks ranked as one of the top sellers during Record Store Day. On November 3, Rodrigo released the song “Can’t Catch Me Now” for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. The song won the Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Original Song in a Sci-Fi, Fantasy or Horror Film at the 2023 ceremony. Rodrigo began dating British actor Louis Partridge in December 2023.
To support Guts, Rodrigo embarked on her second headlining tour, the Guts World Tour, which will run from February to October 2024 in North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania. On March 20, 2024, Rodrigo announced that she would release a deluxe version of Guts with five additional songs, including the four secret tracks from the vinyl variants. She released Guts (Spilled) on March 22, 2024. On April 13, 2024, Rodrigo made a special guest appearance at No Doubt’s Coachella show, where she performed the band’s 2000 single “Bathwater” alongside them.
On October 2, 2024, Rodrigo announced the upcoming release of the Guts World Tour film. The concert was filmed during her two dates at Intuit Dome on August 20 and 21, 2024. The film will be released on October 29, 2024, on Netflix.
ADAM PORT URL LINKS:
Website: http://www.oliviarodrigo.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oliviarodrigo
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/oliviarodrigomusic
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