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Of all the viral moments to emerge from Sunday night’s Grammys, perhaps the most earth-shattering one took place off-camera.
A pop princess peace treaty, grainy fan videos caught a hug between Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter. The two women, both now major names in the music industry, emerged as two points of a notable love triangle in 2021 when Rodrigo’s smash hit “Drivers License” broke the drama wide open.
On the track, Rodrigo chronicled a painful breakup in which the third point of the love triangle − rumored to be actor and singer Joshua Bassett − left her for an older, “blonde girl” (rumored to be Carpenter).
Who did Olivia Rodrigo write ‘Drivers License’ about? Explaining the past Sabrina Carpenter drama
The single, and its accompanying album “Sour,” catapulted Rodrigo into super-stardom and Carpenter fast became the “other woman” in well-worn media narratives aimed at pitting the two against one another.
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In a seeming response to “Drivers License,” Carpenter released a single “Skin” with an accompanying video featuring her sitting atop a vintage Mercedes car similar to the one in the music video for “Drivers License.”
That wasn’t the only parallel. With lyrics like “You been telling your side / So I’ll be telling mine” and “Maybe ‘blonde’ was the only rhyme,” fans were quick to tie the two tracks together.
Explainer:What we know about Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo and the ‘Drivers License’ drama
Bassett, who met Rodrigo on the set of their Disney+ show “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” did not emerge unscathed either, enduring an online battering from fans who took the 11-track project as an exposé of the teen star’s alleged behavior. On songs like “Traitor” and “Deja Vu,” Rodrigo channeled anger and heartbreak, casting doubt on a lover’s loyalty and hinting at an overlap between relationships, allegedly with her and Carpenter.
Carpenter then released an album of her own the following year, also rumored to be partially about Bassett. Taking a more earnest tone than her current “Short n Sweet” era, Carpenter’s 2022 project “Emails I Can’t Send” painted a more innocent picture of her and Bassett’s entanglement and lamented briefly being the internet’s most-hated woman.
“I got death threats filling up semi-trucks / tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice / all because I liked a boy,” she sings on “because i liked a boy,” one of the album’s early tracks calling herself “a rebound gettin’ ’round stealin’ from the young,” in an apparent reference to Rodrigo’s dig.
Three years later, Carpenter and Rodrigo have only become more famous, either woman penning new hit singles, this time about different men and life experiences – and cultivating die-hard fanbases with significant overlap in the process.
Their embrace at the Grammys signaled to some that there was no love lost.
Carpenter won big at the ceremony, taking home awards for best pop solo performance and best pop vocal album. She was nominated in four additional categories.
Rodrigo, who was not nominated but has won several Grammys herself, was a presenter at the show.
Contributing: Jenna Ryu
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