Back in the early 2010s, a feud between singers Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus grew as the two fought over singer Nick Jonas. The love triangle was the front cover of teen magazines and all that girls could talk about. It was an incident that highlighted the 2010s, and no one could have guessed that an even messier love feud would ever top it.
However, it must be true that history does repeat itself. This generation’s messy love triangle is focused around the singers and actors Olivia Rodrigo, Joshua Bassett, and Sabrina Carpenter.
After Olivia Rodrigo dropped her song “driver’s license” on January 8th, listeners were quick to speculate that the song was written about her co-star Joshua Bassett. The song dropped hints about her love interest being with another girl and discusses her turbulent relationship with him.
However, you need to know how our star couple met. Olivia Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett are co-stars on the Disney+ show High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. They play Nini and Ricky, and the series is centered around their relationship. Their chemistry quickly grew offscreen, and the two allegedly started dating in 2019 before calling it quits in May 2020. In the midst of their breakup, Joshua began hanging out with actress and singer Sabrina Carpenter. The two posted TikTok videos together, and Sabrina even showed up in one of Joshua’s music videos.
This is when “driver’s license” comes into play. Olivia had spoken about how Joshua helped her practice for her driver’s license exam when she was 16. The two would joke in interviews about how she could never meet him anywhere because she had no license. The song emphasizes that Olivia got her license, but she was not able to drive to meet with her lover because they had broken up. The song is packed with shade towards Joshua and Sabrina. The line “I guess you didn’t mean what you wrote in that song about me” is a hit towards a song Joshua released in 2020. The line “You’re probably with that blonde girl…she’s so much older than me” connects to Sabrina Carpenter, who is blonde and 21 years old. Many fans were quick to connect the dots and support Olivia during her heartbreak.
However, after the song’s release, Joshua released “Lie Lie Lie” on January 14, which talked about a friendship gone south. Because he has been teasing the song since 2019, fans believed it was not about Olivia. But Sabrina released a song on January 22 called “Skin,” which throws direct shade at Olivia. The lines “maybe blonde was the only rhyme” and “You can try to get…under my skin, Whilе he’s on mine” are shady references to Olivia’s hit single.
All of the songs released seem easy to understand what and who they are written about. The music videos are also symbolic and even connect to one another. More drama then ensued on social media when Sabrina commented that the song she wrote was “not a hit” towards anyone. But in a now-deleted tweet, Olivia wrote “i didn’t even rhyme anything with blonde lol.” Fans were quick to support Olivia with this.
This love triangle is messy, chaotic, and even heartbreaking. None of the three stars have commented directly about the whole drama, but it is safe to say that this feud will not end until allegations are cleared up. Some fans theorize that the whole thing is a publicity stunt created by their managers, while others say it is a real love triangle. No matter what the truth is, Gen Z will always remember them as the trio that kept us entertained. And even better, this might just be the beginning.