Olivia Rodrigo has a message for the internet’s self-appointed fashion police: maybe examine your own baggage before unpacking hers. The singer addressed the backlash over a babydoll dress she wore during a performance at Barcelona’s Teatre Grec on 8 May, where she performed her recent single Drop Dead in a short, puffy floral number. (Yes, she also wears a similar style on the cover of her upcoming album, so brace yourselves.)
In an interview with the New York Times’ Popcast, Rodrigo didn’t mince words. “That’s been making me so upset,” she said. “What’s really disturbing is I feel like I have worn outfits that are revealing on stage. Like, I’ve been on stage in like a sparkly bra, little shorts, which is my right. That’s fun. I felt cool and comfortable in that. And that wasn’t ‘inappropriate’ - but me fully covered up in a dress that people deem to be childlike was inappropriate.” She added, “I think it shows how we really normalize pedophilia in our culture. And also it’s just this rhetoric that we’re fed as girls since we’re so little, which is like, ‘Don’t wear that because then a man is going to sexualize your body and it’s your fault.’ Like, it’s so weird.”
Rodrigo is promoting her forthcoming third album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, due out on 12 June. The Guardian’s Laura Snapes called its lead single Drop Dead a “melody destined to stalk listeners’ brains all summer.” The singer pointed out that the babydoll dress is a 90s punk staple, worn by icons like Kathleen Hanna and Courtney Love. “I didn’t think I looked sexy in that at all,” Rodrigo said. “I was like, ‘This is so cool. I feel like I look like Kathleen Hanna or Courtney Love,’ all these people who are my heroes.” Love herself posted Instagram stories in support of Rodrigo after the backlash.
Rodrigo has said the new album explores lighter themes, a departure from the heartbreak anthems like Drivers License and Vampire and fiery tracks like Good 4 U. “I was really excited to write about joy, love and passion in a way that I had never really done,” she told Cosmopolitan. Last year, she headlined the UK’s Glastonbury festival, and in October, she called out the White House for using her music in anti-immigration videos, calling it “racist, hateful propaganda.” The video for her recent single The Cure features her in a pink nurse’s outfit in a retro-decorated hospital. A fall US tour is announced, with UK and Europe dates to follow early next year.