The success of Olivia Rodrigo’s debut single “Drivers License” also catapulted someone else into the mainstream in a new way — the guy everyone assumes the song is about. Joshua Bassett, her co-star on High School Musical: The Series: The Musical and rumored ex-boyfriend, was seen by the media as the song’s obvious main character — and his rumored relationship with another pop star didn’t help matters. Both Bassett and Sabrina Carpenter released songs shortly after Rodrigo’s release that seemed to comment back, “Lie Lie Lie” and “Skin,” respectively.
But Bassett has been going through his own stuff in 2021, including a major surgery and illness, and his decision to come out as queer. He addressed all this and more in an excellent new profile with GQ, including his perspective on dealing with being constantly cast as the bad guy in Olivia’s story.
He told GQ that that “people don’t know anything they’re talking about.” He continued, saying “the hardest thing” is “biting my tongue, in a lot of ways, but the reality is it’s kind of like a lost cause trying to talk about any of that stuff, and I refuse to feed into any of the bullsh*t, so I just don’t. [Everyone] is asking me about Sabrina [Carpenter] and Olivia. Why don’t we focus on these women for who they are? Let’s focus on the art that they’re making and how great they are instead of their relationship to a boy.”
That’s a pretty woke perspective on the whole thing, Josh! Check out the full GQ profile here and check out his “Feel Something” video above.