Olivia Rodrigo is “not at all” a fan of hot sauce, but she worked her way through several increasingly spicy vegan wings while answering questions in an episode of Hot Ones anyway.
Rodrigo’s appearance on the YouTube series, on which guests join host Sean Evans in eating a progressively hot wing for every question asked, began with the “Drivers License” singer admitting that she’s “the worst with spice. I think that bell peppers are spicy.”
Against all odds, Rodrigo pushed through the levels of heat as she answered questions about her first talent show, music video concepts, ghosts and the highs and lows from a recent trip that started off shaky but ended with her debut awards show performance.
At 8 years old, Rodrigo was the star of the Boys and Girls Club “Idol” stage: “They gave me a trophy that was as tall as me at the end, and they gave me a big check. It was like $100, but at eight years old I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m rich. I can buy an American Girl doll,’” she recalled. By 18, she was performing her debut hit single on the Brit Awards stage.
But ahead of the Brits, the obvious highlight of her trip to London in May, she had a rough time in quarantine.
“We were quarantining in this little, real 18th century English cottage in the countryside, and it was so cold and we couldn’t figure out how to turn on the central air and heating, but they had a fireplace so we lit the fireplace all the time and that’s how we kept warm,” she said on Hot Ones.
Rodrigo recalled, “I just remember one day waking up and it was so smoky. I think I got mild carbon monoxide poisoning ’cause the whole day, I couldn’t stop throwing up in an English countryside house. So that’s definitely a lowlight. I recovered. I don’t know if I had carbon monoxide poisoning, but I was very sick for a day.”
Rodrigo ended up being OK after that experience. But between bites of spicy wings, the singer-songwriter shared another scary story — this time, a supernatural encounter her mother had years ago.
“I don’t f— with ghosts and they don’t f— with me,” Rodrigo made clear, but said, “My mom grew up in Wisconsin, and her parents had this nice house that they got for really cheap. One day, she woke up to go to the bathroom and she saw a man standing at the top of the stairs, and she didn’t tell anyone until 25 years later, and my grandma was like, ‘Oh, you know the reason we got the house for so cheap was because somebody died in the basement — a man died in the basement.’”
See if Rodrigo can live past the Scorpion Disco wing and make it to The Last Dab in the full interview below.
