Is the Olivia Rodrigo/Sabrina Carpenter Beef a PR Stunt?

Valentina Arias, Multimedia Photo Editor

At first, I felt completely oblivious about the whole ordeal going on between Olivia Rodrigo, Joshua Bassett and Sabrina Carpenter. But, as I kept reading into it, it occured to me that the whole love triangle might just be a PR stunt. 

When Olivia Rodrigo’s song “drivers license” came out, it had everyone bawling their eyes out. The song gave me chills just from how good it was. In the song, she spoke about how it felt to have had a connection with someone to have it abruptly end because of another girl. Fans believe the song refers to her co-star from “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” Joshua Bassett. The pair had an amazing connection on and off screen which made everyone believe they were together in real life. 

This left everyone very upset with Bassett. Many believe that he left Rodrigo for actress, singer and Disney alum Sabrina Carpenter. After “drivers license,” Bassett debuted his song with the questionable title: “Lie Lie Lie.” Listening to that song made me wonder if maybe Basset directed the song at Rodrigo, with the lyrics sounds as though everything she said in the song about him was not true.

Bassett has received a ton of backlash since people took the side of the seemingly heartbroken teen, Rodrigo. His fans later cleared the error stating that the song he wrote had actually written the song long before he produced it.

Then I thought that the love triangle could potentially be PR stunt when Carpenter also released a song. In her song titled “Skin,” she wrote a line insinuating that maybe the reason Rodrigo said something about her in the song she wrote was due to the fact that the only thing she could rhyme it with. 

After all that drama, it became crystal clear to me that they plotted a PR stunt just to publicize all three of their new songs. Doing this created a lot of publicity surrounding their song releases, making it a smart idea.