Alone With My Thoughts: Olivia Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett

I’m Shelby, I live on my own, and I’m constantly walking around my apartment talking to myself. So I’ve decided it’s time to talk to all of you. Welcome to Alone With My Thoughts, a series of my completely unsolicited opinions on pop culture, media, and life.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock - or you’re not a full grown adult obsessed with the music and lives of Disney Channel actors - you’ll probably be familiar with the saga of Olivia Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett. These two allegedly dated while filming Disney+’s High School Musical: The Musical The Series in 2019, and broke up in early 2020. Since the breakup, Olivia released her album Sour, and last week Joshua released three new songs titled Crisis, Secret and Set Me Free.

I’ve been seeing so many people reacting to Joshua’s songs on social media recently, feeling like they now get to hear both sides of the story. While I - a literal 24 year old adult - was trying to figure out who’s side I was on, I found myself wondering why anyone really needs to choose a side in the first place?

Let me preface this by saying we obviously don’t know anything about their relationship and we will literally never know what happened. And I completely recognize this “feud” is marketing. But I don’t care why we’re getting it, I live for the drama.

The most recognizable detail of the relationship is probably the fact that Joshua was spotted with Sabrina Carpenter shortly after the alleged breakup with Olivia. I too spent most of last January screaming Driver’s License at my mirror.

I can’t help but feel a little confused listening to Joshua’s songs now. The songs are good, but his overarching theme seems to be complaining that Olivia wrote songs about him. But is that not the point? And also exactly what he’s doing by writing these songs? They’re both songwriters, obviously, they’re both going to write about this situation. “Messing with my life as a career move” feels a little harsh. I know that Joshua got a huge amount of hate after Driver’s License came out. Fans listened to the song, matched lyrics with paparazzi pictures, and drew their own conclusions, but I don’t believe that was Olivia’s intent with that song. Regardless, the hate was unwarranted.

Joshua’s lyrics also gave a lot of insight into how he was feeling during their relationship and breakup. “Don’t you dare act like I didn’t love you” killed me. It made me feel like maybe they could have worked things out. I really feel like these two were a “right person/wrong time” connection. Did I mention I’m way too invested in the lives of these Disney Channel stars?

Joshua absolutely deserves the opportunity to share his feelings and his songs. I’m sure he experienced different feelings than Olivia did during their relationship and breakup. The only detriment is that she got to go first. However, I don’t really think that “taking sides” is the best way to think about it. Olivia spoke about their relationship in her music. She was hurt by him, and she can only speak on her feelings and what she went through. Joshua can only speak on what he feels and what he went through. It’s not “sides” or “picking teams” as much as it is two people who were in a relationship speaking on how they each felt about that relationship.

Olivia and Joshua were also 16 and 18 when they allegedly dated and broke up. They were teenagers, so obviously they were stupid. Hello, have you ever met a teenager who wasn’t an idiot? If these two weren’t famous at the time they dated they probably would have been in high school. The fact that they were (and still are) so young makes it obvious that there were mistakes to be made on both sides.

I guess my final thoughts on this situation are that there were two different people in this - essentially, high school - relationship, they are each allowed to tell their own stories and share how they felt about this relationship. Even people who lived the same situation can feel differently about it. Let’s listen to both of their albums, nobody deserves any hate, I can’t wait for HSMTMTS Season 3.