Olivia Rodrigo Admits She Dated People She 'Shouldn't Have' Following the Success of 'Sour'

Even Olivia Rodrigo can admit she’s had a couple bad ideas, right? 

The pop star, 20, opened up in a new interview with The New York Times about how her recent romantic relationships helped to inform her upcoming album GUTS, due out Sept. 8 on Geffen. 

The “drivers license” singer shared that the runaway success of her Grammy-winning 2021 debut SOUR affected her decision making, including how she felt the need to grow up quickly. 

“I had such a desire to live and experience things and make mistakes and grow after SOUR came out, I kind of felt this pressure to be this girl that I thought everyone expected me to be,” the pop-rock artist told The New York Times. “And I think because of that pressure, maybe I did things that maybe I shouldn’t have — dated people that I shouldn’t have.”

She noted, “I’m very tame,” but explained how those relationships were learning experiences that inspired songs and themes on her new record, which sees her reuniting with producer Dan Nigro. 

Rodrigo dropped the lead single of GUTS, “Vampire,” in June, which details how an ex took advantage of her and exploited her celebrity. 

She explained to The Times that she was uncertain if she should write the track about her fame at all, as she was worried it was “self-indulgent.” 

“I’ve always tried to write about the emotions rather than this weird environment that I’m in,” the singer-songwriter said. Rodrigo eventually decided to write the vulnerable ballad, though, because she sees songwriting as a way “to distill all of your emotions into their simplest, purest, most effective form.”

Rodrigo previously spoke about how there was hesitancy surrounding writing “Vampire” in the way that she did, specifically in reference to the line that says “fame f---er.” In an interview with Audacy’s The Julia Show, she said there was a “debate” about including the lyric.

“Some people said, ‘It kind of isolates you from people, you can’t really say stuff like that in songs if it’s not relatable,’ yada, yada, yada, which I totally get and I saw where they were coming from,” the singer shared. 

“I think the song isn’t about fame f---ing or whatever, I think it’s more about someone being manipulative and sucking you dry, using you for all your worth,” she continued. “I think that that’s a universal theme, and I also think fame is more easily accessible now than it has ever been. It’s not just people in L.A. and Hollywood that have to deal with that.”

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Shortly after the song was released, a source told PEOPLE in July that “Vampire” “isn’t about Adam Faze,” the film/TV producer Rodrigo dated for seven months in 2021 and early 2022.

The Grammy winner and Faze, 26, were first spotted together at the Space Jam 2 premiere in summer 2021. In February 2022, a source told PEOPLE that the pair had “been over for a bit now.”

The “bad idea right” artist has also been linked to Zack Bia. 

PEOPLE confirmed that she and the DJ and record label founder, 27, were an item in June 2022, with a source noting, “they’ve been dating since the Super Bowl” in February 2022. The couple was said to have called things off by August 2022.