Less than a week after Olivia Rodrigo released her popular hit track “Drivers License”, the boy widely considered to be her ex-boyfriend named Joshua Bassett was admitted to the hospital after suffering a heart failure. Olivia Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett first met on the set of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and neither of them have publicly confirmed or denied rumours that they were together. 21 year old Bassett said that Rodrigo’s breakup anthem “Drivers License” was an unanticipated painful situation for him as Rodrigo’s fans issued him death threats on social media. He said, “Every day I felt worse and worse. I was sleeping 16 to 20 hours a day. I couldn’t even stand up for longer than 30 seconds.”
Meanwhile, Bassett was attempting to launch his own career with a song titled “Lie, Lie, Lie”. Fans considered it to be created in response to “Drivers License” which was released on January 8, 2021 but Bassett told People Magazine that it was scheduled before to come out on January 14. On that day, he said, “I felt my heart literally failing, I was like, ‘This isn’t just anxiety. This is bad.'”
A producer of High School Musical drove him to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with septic shock of the heart, which could have been brought about by stress. Bassett recalled, “The doctors were, ‘If you hadn’t checked in within 12 hours, you would have died in your apartment.’ It’s wild that I was this close to taking another nap.” He had to stay in the hospital for nine days and he added that he didn’t feel good after being discharged, “I was even more depressed and stressed. I had a panic attack every single day.” He stated that this experience made him a strong and healthy person, “In this last year a lot of my biggest fears came true. But in that, I found that I’ll always be OK, if not better off.”
Now, Olivia Rodrigo also talked about her breakup in an interview on The Drew Barrymore Show, “I just remember going through that awful heartbreak and feeling so responsible for it too in a way, like you can blame someone else and be like, ‘Oh I hate that you did that to me.’ But when you really think about it, you put yourself in a position to be hurt and nobody’s perfect, and you must have done things wrong in that relationship too.”
Olivia Rodrigo will be performing at this year’s Grammy Awards on April 3rd. She has been nominated for seven awards in the Grammys including the top four categories of Album of the Year, for her debut album SOUR, Record of the Year, for Drivers License, Song of the Year and Best New Artist. Her documentary film will premiere on Disney+ today.