Nooooo Ricky and Nini!
Photo: Kevin Winter / Getty Images
There is a potential love triangle simmering at East View High School. Actress Olivia Rodrigo, who plays Nini Salazar-Roberts at the original Disney + show High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, released a new single this morning, entitled “Driver’s license”, along with a video clip that accompanies it. The song quickly sparked rumors about the details of his relationship with her HSMTMTS co-star Joshua Bassett. The song features some very sharp lyrics, which some fans believe is about Bassett and a certain blonde singer-actress, and now teenagers and pre-teens are nervous. For those of us who graduated from high school before 2008, we will give you a summary.
Rodrigo and Bassett, whose characters date in the series, had on-screen chemistry and an off-screen closeness that sparked rumors about an IRL relationship. In August, Rodrigo posted a TikTok with the caption “And that about failed relationships”, with “All I Want” by HSMTMTS soundtrack, which Rodrigo wrote and sang in the series about Bassett’s character, Ricky. On the new track, “Driver’s License”, Rodrigo laments the end of a relationship while driving through the streets after taking out his license (again, she is 17) and also mentions: “I think you didn’t mean what you wrote in that song about me “that fans are assuming is about Bassett, who released two singles,” Common Sense “and” Anyone Else, “last year.
Now wait – that’s not all, folks. This is where Sabrina Carpenter – the 21-year-old singer and actress who played Maya Hart on the Disney series Girl Meets World – makes it look great. There are also rumors that Bassett and Carpenter started dating after Rodrigo and Bassett broke up in 2020. Although they haven’t publicly stated this either, the two were seen together and appeared in each other’s TikToks, most recently, where they reenacted one scene from The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl. In “Driver’s License”, Rodrigo refers to a “blonde girl” who is “much older than [her]. ”Carpenter is actually blonde and four years older than Rodrigo.
Rodrigo announced the release of “Driver’s License” on January 4 and, an hour later, Bassett announced the release of his next single, entitled “Lie Lie Lie”, which will be released on January 14. in upcoming posts, calling it “weird” and “trying to steal Olivia’s thunder”. They connected a poorly lit image of him in a car to the video clip that Rodrigo released today with “Driver’s License”. Fans also realized that while many cast members from HSMTMTS, including Julia Lester, Joe Serafini, Larry Saperstein, Sofia Wylie and Dara Reneé, enthusiastically commented on Rodrigo’s post, only one, Serafini, commented on Bassett’s post. Do they know more about the drama that is yet to unfold? With the second season coming up, we hope the power of music and a dance number can fix some hearts in HSMTMTS set.
Update, January 11: Rodrigo can count on a Taylor Swift as a supporter, who expressed his support for the “Driver’s License” on Instagram. After Rodrigo posted about her music being under the two new ever bonus tracks, Swift replied, “I say it’s my baby and I’m very proud” (quoting Swift’s own mother). However, it is not the first time that Swift endorses Rodrigo – she previously posted her support for her story on Instagram after Rodrigo did a cover of “Cruel Summer” for MTV in April 2020.
Update, January 13: Before his single was released tomorrow, Joshua Bassett shared a teaser for “Lie Lie Lie” today. Featuring some temperamental guitar strumming and some clips of him riding in the car (!), More will perhaps be revealed when the song is released.
Update, January 14: Aaaaand “Lie Lie Lie” by Joshua Bassett has arrived. Go ahead and try, try, try not to enjoy some speculation about who is kissing who is saying goodbye.
Update, January 15th, 11am: Probably the last place he would like to be after the release of a new single and music video, Bassett shared on Instagram that he was in the hospital recovering from surgery. He described having suffered the worst pain of his life and, without much detail, said that the doctor gave him the medal for being “the sickest patient in the hospital”.
In another, HSMTMTS news related to dramas, fans were quick to compare the videos of Rodrigo and Bassett, both with night driving scenes, hanging outside the car windows, and all in purple neon. However, Bassett first shared the song on Instagram in 2019 (below), long before any rumors about him and Olivia’s relationship.
If “Lie Lie Lie” doesn’t add much to the drama of the love triangle Olivia-Joshua-Sabrina, another potential song with Carpenter and Bassett could. HSMTMTS Detectives also dug up a page of Genius lyrics for a song called “We Both Know”, which is now an unconfirmed and unreleased song by Bassett and Carpenter. The song was archived at BMI in November, and is scheduled for release on Bassett’s next EP. The plot continues to thicken.
Update, January 22: Another week, the release of another song that shakes the continuum HSMTMTS pot of drama. Sabrina Carpenter dropped a new unique surprise, “Skin.” The singer and Girl Meets World the actress’s song features some much pointed the letter of Rodrigo’s driver’s license in this sweet pop ballad.
In the opening verse, she sings that maybe she and the guy (ahem, Rodrigo) could be friends, saying to herself “Maybe you didn’t want to / Maybe ‘blonde’ was the only rhyme”. You must remember, in “Driver’s License”, Rodrigo refers to a “blonde girl / who always did[her]doubt.” Interesting. Carpenter also sings “But you’ve been telling your side / so I’m going to tell mine”, completing the narrative of the love triangle between Rodrigo, Carpenter and Bassett. With all the news surrounding this drama and Rodrigo’s “driver’s license” – which inevitably attracted Carpenter – she says: “You are putting me in the spotlight / But I have been under it all my life”. In some of the most forceful lyrics, Carpenter sings: “You can try / Focus under mine, under mine, under my skin / While he is in mine”, possibly referring to the fact that she is now with Joshua Bassett and Rodrigo is not . Spicy! She also does a little provocation about driving with “Don’t go crazy.” Take it? To drive?
Despite everything, there seems to be no hard feelings on Carpenter’s part, and on the bridge she says the subject: “I just hope that one day / We both can laugh about it”. Yes girls, please don’t let a boy meddle in a possible friendship, we are all better than that!
Update, January 22, 4:15 pm: Bassett showed support for his alleged girlfriend Sabrina Carpenter in his Instagram story today, with an image of the album cover with the caption “it has been engraved in my head since I heard that !!! congratulations @sabrinacarpenter for the ‘skin’, the new label and everything that is to come! Rodrigo’s fans were quick to say that it looks like Bassett sided with Carpenter in the drama, but there is still no word on who is actually dating who. Meanwhile, Rodrigo shared videos about her story singing Taylor Swift. I smell one Reputation it was coming.
Update, January 25, 11:45 am: Carpenter wants us all to keep an open mind “lyrically”. In a post on Instagram, the 21-year-old blonde explained that “Skin” is not a track by Rodrigo diss: “I was not bothered by a few lines in a song (magnificent) and I wrote a nasty track about it,” she captioned a selfie. “I was at a critical point in my life for a number of reasons. so I was inspired to do what I normally do to deal with it, to write something that I wish I had said to myself in the past. ”She adds that the song is not about a specific person or event, but a combination of experiences from the past year. “I don’t want this to become an endless cycle, so please don’t take this as an opportunity to send more hatred to anyone,” she concluded with an appeal to fans. Stream “Skin” and “Driver’s license” for patience and strength to deal with a tabloid love triangle.
Update, January 29: Who’s lying to Joshua Bassett, here’s another song just for you. “Only a Matter of Time”, the second single from his next EP, was released yesterday. Fans have deduced that the track possibly refers to the sexual assault charges made against Bassett in June 2020 and does not refer to the current situation with Olivia Rodrigo. In June 2020, a 16-year-old fan named Grace claimed that Bassett kissed and groped her in November 2019 in New York City. The complaints were made on a Twitter account that was soon deactivated. On June 24, Bassett addressed the “abominable rumor, ”Telling followers that it was“ absolutely false ”. After the release of “Only a Matter of Time”, Bassett shared in an Instagram story, “I wrote this song in the summer of 2020 at a time when social media was bringing a lot of darkness into my life. It was curative to hang up the phone, turn off the noise and just write. There are good things that come from social media, but it has also become a place where people can say anything about anyone, no matter how fake or harmful, without responsibility ”. In the club, Bassett sings about someone who has been spreading lies about him and that the truth will eventually come out. While reflecting on his pain, he makes it clear that he does not want revenge, which is in the hands of karma.
Meanwhile, Sabrina Carpenter has teased another song that will be released on social media this week, so see you next week for more updates on this endless drama.
Update, February 1: It’s not a new song – it’s “Skin” music video! It is full of references, not only presenting a literal car but also similar to Bassett (played by Sabrina’s chilling adventures star Gavin Leatherwood). Maybe next week we will have the rap battle Carpenter-Rodrigo?