Sabrina Carpenter has responded after she was accused of writing a “diss track” about Olivia Rodrigo, the singer of viral TikTok hit Drivers License.
Drivers License by Disney actress Olivia Rodrigo, broke records last week for becoming the fastest song to reach 100 million streams on Spotify. It was quite literally an overnight sensation, racking up over 9 million views within the space of just a few days.
Actress Sabrina Carpenter, who also became famous on Disney, then brought out her own track called Skin on Friday, January 22, but many people viewed the lyrics as shade toward Olivia Rodrigo.
Drivers License is thought to be about Olivia Rodrigo’s own relationships, and therefore widely considered to be about her fellow High School Musical: The Series cast member Joshua Bassett, who has also been linked to Carpenter.
Olivia’s hit single Drivers License became an overnight sensation
Rodrigo’s song features the lyrics, “and you’re probably with that blonde girl/ who always made me doubt/ she’s so much older than me/ she’s everything I’m insecure about.” Meanwhile, Carpenter’s single Skin has the lyrics: “maybe you didn’t mean it/ maybe blonde was the only rhyme” and “you can try to get under my, under my, under my skin while he’s on mine,”
After staying silent on the issue, Sabrina has now spoken out on Instagram to explain why her song is not actually a diss track on Olivia. In a caption, she wrote “Thank you to everyone who has listened to Skin, especially those who have opened their minds to lyrically what I was trying to get across.
“I wasn’t bothered by a few lines in a (magnificent) song and wrote a diss track about it. I was at a tipping point in my life for countless reasons. So I was inspired to do what I usually do to cope, write something that I wish I could have told myself in the past.
“People can only get to you if you give them the power to. and a lot of people were trying to get to me. The song isn’t calling out one single person. Some lines address a specific situation, while other lines address plenty of other experiences I’ve had this past year. It also shows that many things have actually gotten under my skin.. and I’m still learning to not give other people so much power over my feelings. I know a lot of you struggle with the same thing.”
To end with, she added, “I don’t want this to become an endless cycle so please don’t take this as an opportunity to send more hate anyone’s way.”