3 weeks ago
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Olivia Rodrigo has been riding some big highs lately — like selling 1.4 million tickets for her GUTS World Tour, releasing her concert film of that tour (out on Netflix now), and of course, meeting the King of Australian king penguins, Pesto the giant baby penguin (we’ll still love you once you fledge, baby boy!!!). But there still have been some low moments, too, even if Olivia has picked herself back up and taken things in stride. Sometimes literally, like when she fell through a hole on stage mid-performance at a show in Melbourne, that fans helpfully caught on camera from multiple angles. I still can’t believe how quickly she popped out of that hole and kept going; I wouldn’t have been that nimble even when I was her age. And now Olivia has shared another less-than-stellar incident. She was just on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to promote the GUTS film, where she told a very unsavory story about being interrogated for a half hour by federal agents at the Canadian border:
Speaking about her tour to Jimmy, Olivia began: “I got in trouble with the law for the first time in my life.”
“We’re going from Canada to Portland or something, we’re at border control, I give them my passport, like: ‘OK, whatever,’ then they knock on the door and they’re like: ‘We need Olivia,’” the star explained.
“I’m like: ‘I just played a few shows, maybe their daughter wants an autograph,’” she continued. “I come out, it’s 3 a.m. and I’m delirious, and they take me to a room, and it’s an interrogation room and there’s a big cop with a gun and he’s like: ‘Have you ever been arrested?’”
“I’m like: ‘No! I haven’t been arrested!’” Olivia recalled. “He’s like, ‘Are you sure?’ and I’m gaslighting myself, like: ‘Oh my god, maybe I was arrested and I didn’t know it!’”
“He’s like: ‘You know, you can go to jail for lying to a federal officer, this is really bad,’” Olivia went on. “I’m freaking out, like: ‘I’m not going to get into America!’ I’m so scared, I’m, like, having a panic attack.”
She then concluded: “After 30 minutes of interrogation, he looks at me and goes: ‘What’s your name?’ [I said] ‘Olivia Rodrigo: R O D R I G O,’ and he’s like: ‘Oh, there’s a girl who looks just like you that’s the same age that’s been arrested multiple times and her name’s Olivia Rodriguez.’”
Visibly still in disbelief over the whole ordeal, Olivia admitted to the host: “Jimmy, I was pissed! I’m like: ‘You didn’t look at the name on the thing and you’re interrogating me for 30 minutes?!’ but phew, crisis averted.”
The segment ended with both Olivia and Jimmy wondering who the real Olivia Rodriguez is as they warned her to keep a low profile.
Ugh. To borrow the parlance of Olivia’s generation: this story gives me “the ick.” She did say it was three in the morning, which means the officers were tired too. But reading and confirming a person’s frickin’ name has to be the very basic of first steps. It barely even adds up, because Olivia had already handed them her passport! Who flagged her name, anyway, and was it from reading the passport or from hearing an agent say her name? I want a full-scale investigation into this!! I’m glad Olivia called him out after the cop copped to getting the wrong name! Again, double checking the name with the alleged criminal you’re looking to bring in, really is the absolute lowest of expectations for law enforcement. At least Olivia was able to make good late night TV fodder out of this. She was so funny describing how easily she started second-guessing herself, “Wait, have I been arrested?”
Later on in the interview, she also shared a sweet follow up to that whole falling-in-a-hole-on-stage episode. After she finished the concert, Olivia went to the hospital to make sure she didn’t have a concussion. The nurse who tended to her was Filipino and had the same name as her late grandfather, so Olivia thought it was him giving her a nod from beyond that she’s ok. Aw, that story gives me “the feels.”
Photos credit: Miles Leavitt/Netflix, Emilio Madrid/Getty Images for Netflix
