Disney drama! Us Weekly is breaking down Olivia Rodrigo’s alleged feud with High School Musical: The Musical — The Series costar Joshua Bassett and Sabrina Carpenter, amid their music faceoff.
The Bizaardvark alum, 17, made headlines in January 2021 after releasing her debut single, “Driver’s License.” The hit song resonated with Rodrigo’s fans, including Taylor Swift, but it also caused some to think that it was about the rumored drama between her, Bassett, 20, and Carpenter, 21.
Eagle-eyed fans pointed out that Rodrigo changed the lyrics from her 2020 teaser track from “brunette” to “blonde,” seemingly referencing the Girl Meets World alum in one verse.
“And you’re probably with that blonde girl / Who always made me doubt / She’s so much older than me / She’s everything I’m insecure about,” the Grace Stirs Up Success star sings, hinting at Carpenter’s hair color and the fact that she is three years older than her.
Rodrigo’s track came six months after Bassett released the song, “Anyone Else,” in July 2020, which appeared to be about her. “How am I supposed to think about anything else? / How am I to go on keeping this to myself? / I am done pretending I want anyone else / Anyone else, anyone else,” Bassett sings. He later confirmed that the track was written about falling for a friend who was unavailable.
In her song, Rodrigo, sings, “I just can’t imagine how you could be so OK now that I’m gone / Guess you didn’t mean what you wrote in that song about me.”
Although the costars have never addressed whether they were ever romantically involved, fans believe that Rodrigo and Bassett were an item in 2020. The Stuck in the Middle alum, however, seemed to move on with Carpenter in June 2020, after the pair were spotted at a protest together in L.A.
Rodrigo has yet to identify who inspired her new track, but both Bassett and Carpenter have since dropped songs of their own, hinting that they are in fact the source of inspiration for “Driver’s License.”
Bassett’s January 2021 release, titled, “Lie, Lie, Lie,” came out on January 14, one week after Rodrigo’s song hit the airwaves.
“I wrote ‘Lie, Lie, Lie’ after I found out a friend had been lying about me behind my back for a long time,” the Oceanside, California, native wrote via his Instagram Stories at the time. “It always sucks to hear that someone you thought you could trust would throw you under the bus when it benefits them.”
He added: “It happens to all of us, and I think all you can do is seek out people that build you up rather than tear you down.”
The following week, the Clouds actress shared what appeared to be her side of the story, in the January 22 release of “Skin.”
“Maybe we could’ve been friends / If I met you in another life,” Carpenter sings at one point in the track. She later seemingly referenced Rodrigo’s title, with the lyric, “Don’t drive yourself insane.”
Scroll down to see everything that has unfolded between the Disney Channel stars amid their alleged feud.
Fans claimed that the costars dated in 2020, but neither Rodrigo nor Bassett have confirmed whether they were more than friends.
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Bassett has been linked to Carpenter since June 2020, when they were spotted at a Black Lives Matter protest in Los Angeles. The pair have not publicly confirmed their romance but shared videos on TikTok wearing matching Halloween costumes in October 2020.
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The Stuck in the Middle alum released his “Anyone Else” album in July 2020. In the title track, he sings about loving someone who is already in a relationship. He later spoke about the inspiration behind the song, telling Broadway World that he wrote it after realizing “that I was hopelessly falling in love with a close friend … who was in a relationship with someone else.”
After the Bizaardvark alum released her song “Driver’s License” in January 2021, fans speculated that it was about her rumored feud with Bassett and his new flame, Carpenter. “And you’re probably with that blonde girl / Who always made me doubt / She’s so much older than me / She’s everything I’m insecure about,” she sings in one verse.
Eagle-eyed fans pointed out that in her teaser of the single, released via Instagram in 2020, the lyrics were about a “brunette,” but was changed on the final version to “blonde,” seemingly hinting at Carpenter. Rodrigo also sang, “Guess you didn’t mean what you wrote in that song about me,” which some listeners think was referring to Bassett’s “Anyone Else” track.
“I totally understand people’s curiosity with the specifics of who the song’s about and what it’s about, but to me, that’s really the least important part of the song,” Rodrigo told Billboard in January 2021 about who inspired her hit single. “It’s resonating with people because of how emotional it is, and I think everything else is not important.”
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“I know what you say about me / I hope that it makes you happy / You can’t seem to get me off your mind (Get me off your mind),” Bassett sings in his January 2021 track, “Lie, Lie, Lie,” seemingly reacting to Rodrigo’s song. “Oh, I know you’re lying through your teeth / You told them the lies that you told me / I’ve had enough of it this time (Had enough this time).” The musician also released a corresponding music video on January 14, showing him driving alone in a car, in what appears to be a nod to his costar’s song.
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The Girl Meets World alum released her own song, “Skin,” in January 2021, seemingly about the alleged feud between her and Rodrigo over Bassett. “I’m not asking you to let it go / You been tellin’ your side / So I’ll be tellin’ mine,” Carpenter sings, noting in the chorus, “You can try / To get under my, under my, under my skin / While he’s on mine / Yeah, all on my, all on my, all on my skin / I wish you knew that еven you / Can’t get under my skin if I don’t let you in.”
In another line, the Adventures in Babysitting star sings that “maybe ‘blonde’ was the only rhyme,” allegedly pointing to being called a “blonde girl” in Rodrigo’s track.
“Been stuck in my head since I heard it,” Bassett wrote on his Instagram Story in January 2021, praising Carpenter’s new song. “Congratulations @sabrinacarpenter on ‘Skin,’ the new label, & all that’s to come.”
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Hours after the Horns actress dropped “Skin,” Rodrigo posted a video of herself on her Instagram Story singing Taylor Swift’s “…Ready for It?” while in her car. The Disney star sang the verse, “I see nothing better I keep him forever / Like a vendetta-ta / I-I-I see how this is gonna go / Touch me and you'll never be alone / I-Island breeze and lights down low / No one has to know,” which seemed to hint at the back and forth drama between the three stars.
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Carpenter shut down rumors that she "wrote a diss track" about Rodrigo in a January 2021 Instagram post about the release of "Skin." She also called "Drivers License" a "magnificent" song. "['Skin'] isn’t calling out one single person,” she insisted. “Some lines address a specific situation, while other lines address plenty of other experiences I’ve had this past year.. it also shows that many things have actually gotten under my skin.. and I’m still learning to not give other people so much power over my feelings."
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Bassett released “Only a Matter of Time” on January 28, which he revealed was written in the summer of 2020, around the same time that he first started seeing Carpenter after his alleged fallout with Rodrigo. In the song, he talks about drama and a back-and-forth relationship, seemingly hinting at his own love triangle. “It’s only a matter of time / An eye for an eye / You’ll go blind / And when did you stop being kind? / You twisted your words like a knife,” he sings in the chorus. “I’m sure that you’re hurting inside / Why would you make your pain mine? / Making me pay me for your crimes.”
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"It's such a struggle not to be able to control the narrative and know that whether you say something or whether you don't say something, people are gonna be mad at you either way," Carpenter told Radio.com in a February 2021 interview, seemingly denying that the "blonde" lyric in "Skin" is a reference to Rodrigo's chart-topping single. "It's really just one of those things where you have to kind of to do for yourself at the end of the day and do it in the hopes that someone can find inspiration in the message. ... At the end of the day, the more I dance around the subject, the less people kind of understand where I'm coming from. Not that the goal is to get them to understand, because I don't think at the end of the day you're ever going to accomplish that."
Though her song was the latest to ignite feud rumors, Carpenter thinks its message is one that "a lot of people have probably felt" they can relate to. "There's very obviously gravity in the words that we put out," she said. "people feel the need to always insert their opinions. Sometimes it's easier to shut your mouth than other times ... And this time I wrote a song and I'm very proud of it, and I'm glad that people are receiving it well."
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In February 2021, Carpenter teased a collaboration with Bassett called “We Both Know” during a Radio.com interview. “I can’t say too much. It’s on his project, so I’m like, I don't want to say too much that I can't say, but it’s a collaboration very dear to my heart that I’m excited about,” she explained. “We did it a while ago now. I guess you'll have to see!”
Bassett also opened up about the project while speaking to Febre Teen the month before. At the time, he revealed that he reached out to Carpenter via Instagram after writing the track.
“I sent her a quick message and was like, ‘Hey, I think you’re really awesome and I have this song I think you would sound great on, let me know what you think,’ and she responded like 10 minutes later, gave me her number, and I sent her the song,” he recalled. “Fortunately, she liked it, so we got together in the studio and it was just a blast to make. I’m really happy with how it all turned out.”
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Nothing to see here! Bassett revealed in February 2021 that he cut a duet with Carpenter off his upcoming EP.
“I didn’t want my EP to be overshadowed by some other narrative that people were trying to make,” he told Billboard magazine. “I really want the focus to be on the art instead of some of the talk and the chatter. You shouldn’t live to please everybody, but at the same time, there are ways to be sensitive to situations where maybe [the duet] has a better chance at a different time.”
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Rodrigo revealed in a March 2021 interview with Radio.com that she doesn’t know Carpenter “at all” after months of drama between the pair. “I think we’ve met once or twice in passing, but I’ve never had a conversation with her,” she explained. “I don’t think I could write a song that was meaningful or emotional about somebody that I don’t know.”
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Three months after “Drivers License,” Rodrigo dropped her second single, “Deja Vu,” and all signs pointed to Bassett and Carpenter. As she sang about watching an ex move on, Rodrigo seemingly referenced Bassett’s jacket (again), teaching him about Billy Joel (he covered “Vienna” in 2019) and singing duets together. The most-telling lyric pointed to her ex dating someone else in the entertainment business.
“Do you call her, almost say my name? / ‘Cause let's be honest, we kinda do sound the same,” Rodrigo sings. “Another actress, I hate to think that I was just your type.”
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Weeks after her second single dropped, Bassett sent his costar love via Instagram Stories. “SUUUUUUPER late on this but!” he wrote in April 2021. “I love this song so much @oliviarodrigo!!! The world better watch out for the album!!!!!”
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Rodrigo addressed the increased interest in her love life in her May 2021 Elle cover story. “It’s truly any songwriter’s dream,” she said in the profile, which was released online in April 2021. “There’s something so powerful in being vulnerable and open, like, 'This is my life, and I’m f—king sad' or 'I’m insecure.' That’s what makes songwriting so special."
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