Olivia Rodrigo has criticised the online backlash to her recent babydoll-style outfits, saying the reaction “shows how we really normalise paedophilia in our culture”.
The 23-year-old singer addressed the controversy during an appearance on The New York Times’ podcast Popcast, after weeks of online debate around the dresses she wore while promoting her forthcoming third album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love.
“What’s really disturbing is I feel like I have worn outfits that are maybe revealing on stage,” Rodrigo said. “I’ve been on stage in a sparkly bra and little shorts, which is my right. That’s fun. I felt cool and comfortable in that. And that wasn’t inappropriate, but me fully covered up in a dress that people deemed to be childlike was inappropriate.”
She added: “It just shows how we really normalise pedophilia in our culture. Also it’s just this rhetoric we’re fed as girls since we’re so little, which is, don’t wear that because then a man is going to sexualise your body and it’s your fault. It’s so weird.”
The backlash was primarily focused on Rodrigo’s styling in the Petra Collins-directed video for “Drop Dead,” which was released in April and filmed at the Palace of Versailles, where the Grammy-winning singer wore a pastel-blue babydoll dress with visible bloomers and white knee socks.
Earlier this month, Rodrigo appeared in a pink-and-white floral puff-sleeve babydoll dress paired with matching ruffled bloomers and black Dr Martens boots at the Spotify’s Billions Club Live concert at Teatro Grec in Barcelona.
Her outfits have since prompted criticism across social media, where multiple users accused the singer of adopting a “Lolita,” “sexy baby,” or “pedo-core” aesthetic, to describe imagery that combines childlike clothing or behaviour with adult sexuality.
“Can Olivia Rodrigo dress like a normal pop star and stop trying to dress up like a toddler?” one person asked on X, formerly Twitter. “I will never get people dressing like a baby,” another commented on an image of Rodrigo from the “Drop Dead” music video.
Others some defended Rodrigo, pointing to the “kinderwhore” aesthetic associated with 1990s alternative rock and riot grrrl culture. The style, popularised by musicians including Courtney Love of Hole and Kat Bjelland of Babes in Toyland, combined babydoll dresses, Peter Pan collars, ripped tights, knee socks, smeared makeup and heavy boots with aggressive punk performance and explicitly feminist lyrics.
The aesthetic later became closely associated with the wider riot grrrl movement led by bands including Bikini Kill, fronted by Kathleen Hanna, which emerged in the early 1990s as a feminist response to misogyny in punk music and broader popular culture.
Rodrigo disagreed that she looked like a “sexy baby” and brought up Love and Hanna as inspirations. “I didn’t think that I looked sexy in that at all,” she said. “I was like, this is so cool. I feel I look like Kathleen Hanna or Courtney Love, all these people who are my heroes, and I felt cool and comfortable in it.”
“I just think if we start dressing in a way that’s like, ‘I don’t want some f***ing freak to think that I’m sexy like a baby’ or some crazy thing like that, I think it’s losing the plot a little bit. I’m just very protective of younger women, girls, and I don’t ever want them to be fed that rhetoric.”
In a conversation with The Independent’s Lydia Spencer-Elliott, rock music researcher and academic Dr James How explained that Rodrigo is “engaging with these great 1990s rock stars, who were really alternative, but I don’t think she’s playing with the meanings that they were”.
That said, How added: “People don’t allow artists, especially women, the freedom that they have to express themselves. We don’t really know where Rodrigo is going with this; She’s not being given time to find those meanings. I think it’s horrible that people aren’t allowing her to express herself in that way – Courtney Love wore some pretty outrageous stuff really and she wasn’t going to let anyone stop her from doing it.”
You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love is Rodrigo’s third studio album, her first since 2023’s Guts. Rodrigo announced the record on 2 April and has so far released the singles “Drop Dead” and “The Cure,” and debuted the track “Begged” during an appearance on Saturday Night Live earlier this month.
You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love is due to be released on 12 June.
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