Olivia Rodrigo sings about how she "makes it weird" on "Song of a Homeschooled Girl," and it doesn't sound like she's exaggerating about her tendency to be socially awkward. After a very public "very embarrassing encounter" last year, she finally appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" on Dec. 7 to explain what happened.
This embarrassment happens all the time on social media. Rodrigo made a terrible mistake when she was checking up on an ex on Instagram: “One time I had a very awkward encounter while stalking my ex, as people do. Sue me, I'm sorry," she told Fallon. "I followed him unintentionally because I was stalking him."
followers around the world
For Rodrigo, this is a uniquely big problem. "I try to follow zero people because it helps me stay off my phone and, you know, off social media," she explained. This means it was "very obvious" when she started stalking her ex. "My friend ran into my room and was like, 'Oh my God! Are you trying to follow him? Like, unfollow him!'" she added.
If she could, she would do so immediately. "I walked over, grabbed my phone, and I said, 'Oh, shoot! Oh, my God!'" she said. "I went to open the Instagram app and the minute I opened the app, my phone froze."
Rodrigo's awkward situation got even worse. She recalled that she "couldn't find the charger" and was therefore unable to correct her mistake. "So I just followed my ex for a while," she said.
cover up the truth
Fallon asked Rodrigo if people understood what was going on, and she said people thought she had been hacked. She was happy to use that excuse as cover. "I said, 'Yeah, you guys. Stay safe. ... Guys, do two-factor authentication," she said.
While Rodrigo may have been embarrassed at the time, her takeaway wasn't to stop social media stalking her ex. Instead, she created a finsta so that she could be "safe," as she put it. "So you can lurk and be curious," she told Fallon after suggesting he create his own fake Instagram account.
problematic ex
In her story, Rodrigo never mentions her ex-lover. However, many fans immediately recalled the time in early July 2022 when she followed and unfollowed her rumored ex-boyfriend, Joshua Bassett. (Although they never confirmed they were dating, the two were romantically linked in 2020 while co-starring in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series .) "Olivia Rodrigo Didn't Confess She wasn't [sic] hacked at the time. Because she was stalking her ex-boyfriend aka Joshua Bassett and accidentally stalked him," one fan wrote on Twitter.
When everything fell apart, many fans did think she was being hacked. On July 2, 2022, someone wrote on She focuses on Bassett and Bassett alone. Another tweeted, "olivia rodrigo got hacked on insta?" and a like-minded fan wrote, "@oliviarodrigo liv baby your ig was hacked."
Still, some people weren't fooled. One netizen tweeted, “Olivia Rodrigo was lurking on Joshua’s IG, inadvertently following him and her team in an attempt to cover up the fact that she was hacked.” and added three emoji to show how funny they find it. Thanks to Rodrigo, they were finally vindicated.
