Iin the space of just two weeks, three Disney stars engulfed old and young in their bizarre love triangle.
On January 7, Olivia Rodrigo, known for acting and singing at Disney’s Bizaardvark and Disney + ‘s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, released the “driver’s license”, a heartbreaking song that not only immediately shot to number 1 Advertising panel Hot 100, but it also broke the Spotify record twice for most daily streams of a song outside the holiday. Music quickly became an overnight phenomenon, with TikTok users creating millions of videos recreating the video clip or explaining the drama behind it.
The background story of the music ripped from the headlines only added to the public’s obsession. Rodrigo has been a Taylor Swift fan since she was kid, and Swift’s style of writing clearly inspired Rodrigo, who sought specific details of his life to tell the universal story of lost love. “I got my driver’s license last week, as we always talked about / why you were so excited that I finally came to your place,” she sings, later singing about seeing the guy everywhere, especially in all cars whites. The fans quickly realized this, pointing out that Rodrigo said in an interview that his alleged ex-boyfriend (and High School Musical co-star) Joshua Bassett taught her to drive her white car.
But perhaps the most contagious lyrics come when Rodrigo sings: “I bet you are with that blonde girl, who always made me doubt / she is much older than me, she is everything that makes me insecure”, Basset was recently seen with a “much older” blonde – four years old, which is practically a decade for a 17-year-old boy like Rodrigo.
Enter Sabrina Carpenter, musical artist and star of Girl Meets World and Netflix Work. She is the supposed “blonde girl” because she and Bassett were seen together at Black Lives Matter protests over the summer and having dinner in California – a year after Bassett reportedly wrote a love song about Rodrigo called “Anyone Else” in Salt Lake City apartment while filming HSMTMTS, to which Rodrigo nods: “I think you didn’t mean what you wrote in that song about me” in “driver’s license”. Rodrigo and Bassett seemed to get along until the end of April, when Rodrigo liked Bassett’s tweet urging your followers to “remind someone you love them now.” But in August, Rodrigo posted on TikTok about “failed relationships”.
In an attempt to tell its side of the story, 21-year-old Carpenter launched “Skin” last week, which lacks any self-awareness, mainly because it is the oldest in this situation. In “Skin”, she sings, “Maybe then we could pretend that there is no gravity in the words we write / Maybe you didn’t mean it, maybe ‘blonde’ was the only rhyme”, and then, “You can try to get under mine, under mine, under my skin / While he’s in mine. Bassett later praised the song on his Instagram, writing, “it got 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’re telling them it’s all my fault / You’re the victim this time”, and in the video clip that accompanies Bassett hangs out the window of a car, which reflects what Rodrigo does in his video clip.
Both Rodrigo and Carpenter cited Lorde and Swift as inspirations in songwriting – “Taylor Swift is my songwriting idol and I wouldn’t 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 admire and also musically, she does her own thing in her own way.” As for Bassett, he says that John Mayer is his inspiration.
Somehow, by the grace of God or good publicists or possibly both, the three artists released their own song about the love triangle in a matter of two weeks. Not only that, but Rodrigo and Bassett apparently put their hatred aside while promoting HSMTM: The Holiday Special in December, even praising their prolific compositional skills.
“Somehow, by the grace of God or good publicists or possibly both, the three artists released their own song about the love triangle in a matter of two weeks.“
Rodrigo, Bassett and Carpenter are far from the first young lovebirds to put their real-life drama into action. In 2008, an 18-year-old Swift continued The Ellen Show to tell the host and his millions of viewers that boy bander Joe Jonas broke up with her in a 25-second phone call, and that she had written a song about it – “Forever and Always”, which was awarded the Grammy album Fearless. There were other songs too, like “Better Than Revenge”, in which Swift sang about another girl “stealing” her boyfriend. “She is not a saint and she is not what you think, she is an actress / She is best known for the things she does on the mattress,” sang Swift. The Jonas Brothers responded with “Much Better”, who nodded to Swift and all the “tears on his guitar” and how “much better” the new girl was. The supposed “much better” girl was actress Camilla Belle, who doesn’t write songs, so we may never know her side of the story. (However, when Swift receives bad publicity, 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 a chance to sing blues or cast a pair of Spears for a music video. Hilary Duff, Lindsay Lohan and Aaron Carter commented on each other in the press and SNL about their love triangle, but when it comes to music, there were really just Duff’s “Hate”, where she sang: “You say your boyfriend is sweet and kind / But you’re keeping an eye on mine”.
Rodrigo may not have hit the guy in the end, but she did receive Swift approval. “I say it’s my baby and I’m really proud”, Swift commented in Rodrigo’s photo on Instagram.