Olivia Rodrigo Shares How She Was ‘Stalking’ Joshua Bassett On IG

In 2020, it was rumored that pop star Olivia Rodrigo and her High School Musical: The Musical: The Series co-star Joshua Bassett were dating. In August of that year, Bassett was seen on a date with Sabrina Carpenter, suggesting the pair had split.

Then, in the summer of 2022, fans noticed that Rodrigo briefly followed her alleged ex on Instagram before she quickly unfollowed him. It was suggested that she might have been hacked, but Rodrigo finally admitted that she was behind the entire thing, falling victim to her own social media “stalking.”

In an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Rodrigo came clean, first explaining, “I try to follow zero people because it helps me be off of my phone, you know, off of social media.”

She went on, “I had this very embarrassing encounter once where I was stalking my ex—as one does, sue me, sorry—and I accidentally followed him because I was stalking him.”

Because she doesn’t follow people, the new add was “super obvious” to her own followers.

“I was just following one person so it was super obvious that I was following him, and my friend ran into my room like, ‘Oh my God, did you mean to follow him?! Unfollow him!’” Rodrigo continued. “And I went and grabbed my phone like, ‘Shit, oh my God!’”

But the situation became a farce when her phone died in her hand.

“I went to open the Instagram app, and the second that I opened the app, my phone died!” she told Fallon.

“I couldn’t find a charger so I was just following my ex for a while. It was quite embarrassing,” she added.

Who hasn’t been there? Since the incident, Rodrigo says she played into the hacking rumors and also started a “finsta” account, or a fake account just for lurking purposes. She and Bassett seem to be on good terms now, though her hit single “drivers license” from 2021, and her songs “deja vu,” “traitor,” and “good 4 u” are supposedly about the relationship.

Aimée Lutkin is the weekend editor at ELLE.com. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Glamour, Marie Claire and more. Her first book, The Lonely Hunter, will be released by Dial Press in February 2022.