Olivia Rodrigo‘s no-following rule on Instagram seriously backfired at one point.
Appearing on the Tonight Show Thursday night (Dec. 7), the 20-year-old pop star finally explained why she doesn’t follow anyone else on her account, which has 35 million followers. “I try to follow zero people because it helps me be off of my phone, you know, off of social media,” she told host Jimmy Fallon.
But even the best laid plans can have unintended consequences. “I had this very embarrassing encounter once where I was stalking my ex, as one does,” she confessed. “Sue me, sorry. And I accidentally followed him ’cause I was stalking him. And I was just following one person so it was super obvious that I was following him.”
After one of her friends breathlessly ran in from the other room to inform Olivia of the mistake, things took a turn for the worse. “I went to open the Instagram app, and the second I opened the app, my phone died!” Rodrigo continued, earning stunned laughs from the audience. “I couldn’t find the charger so I was just following my ex for a while.”
The “Vampire” singer’s stop by the Tonight Show comes three nights ahead of her upcoming return to Saturday Night Live, where she’ll serve as musical guest on this weekend’s Adam Driver-hosted episode. She previously sang “Drivers License” and “Good 4 U” on the show in 2021, in one of the first-ever live performances of her career.
And though she didn’t specify which ex was the recipient of her accidental follow, Rodrigo’s fans are convinced it’s her former High School Musical: The Musical: The Series costar Joshua Bassett. Some claim to remember the moment she was solely following the “Lie, Lie, Lie,” singer in July of 2022.
“People were like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s hacked!’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, you guys, be safe! Two-factor authentication, you guys,’” Rodrigo joked to Fallon. “I have a finsta now, so I’m safe.” The singer also talked about her sophomore GUTS album being nominated for six Grammy awards — she said she and her mom used to make their own hand-written ballots for each year’s show when she was a kid — and the time Fallon made her mom’s life when he hugged her at a party.
Fallon also busted out the album cover and a snippet of the adorable Christmas song Rodrigo wrote when she was five (“The Bels”) and a photo of her pop star-themed sixth birthday party, proof, she joked, that she “manifested” her career.
See Olivia Rodrigo on the Tonight Show above.
