Olivia Rodrigo is still processing the year she’s had, saying that she went from driving “around my neighborhood crying” to blasting her number one hit while behind the wheel.
In a new interview with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe, the Grammy nominee reflected on how much her life has changed since releasing her debut single “drivers license” on January 8, 2021.
While Olivia says it’s “pretty amazing” to have suddenly gone from just being known for the Disney+ series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series to one of the biggest singers of 2021, she still hasn’t “really processed that sort of immediacy.”
Although the 18-year-old doesn’t believe “my success, by any means, was overnight”,” she does admit, “My whole life is just like changing in an instant.”
The teenager says releasing her debut album SOUR in May is what started to help her adjust to her newfound fame.
“I remember there was a distinct moment in my life when that album went from something that was really depressing and sad to me to something that represented like triumph and that was really special,” she explained, “I remember actually putting out ‘drivers license’ and it had actually just gone number 1 — or something like that — and I was driving around. I was blasting the song and I had like obviously driven around my neighborhood crying to like other songs that I wrote about in the song.”
Olivia said what she remembers most in that standout moment was “smiling and feeling such intense joy and like pride in like the work that I created.”
And if becoming a famous singer wasn’t enough, Olivia can also call herself a smartphone case designer. She’s collaborated with Casetify and will launch the Hardened Hearts Collection on Wednesday, December 15.
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