Olivia Rodrigo Blesses the VMAs with Some ‘Guts’ Spillage
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Hours after dropping the music video for “Get Him Back!,” Olivia Rodrigo performed the Guts highlight at the MTV Video Music Awards on Tuesday.
The singer opened her performance in a fiery red top, pleated skirt and white leg warmers while singing “Vampire” in a forest set, recreating her “onset disaster” theme of the song’s video, before she was rushed off the stage from a staged malfunction.
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Rodrigo then walked out in front of a purple curtain to perform “Get Him Back” surrounded by dancers in pink outfits as she sang the silly lyrics to the Guts standout.
Although Rodrigo debuted “Get Him Back!” on the Today Show last week, the pop star’s fiery performance at New Jersey’s Prudential Center felt like the song’s true introduction to the stage.
In her Rolling Stone cover story that dropped on Tuesday, Rodrigo revealed that her father, who is a therapist, has yet to hear the humorous line in “Get Him Back!”: “I am my father’s daughter/So maybe I could fix him!”
The song’s lyrics — a double entendre about wanting to both rekindle and seek revenge on a former lover — allude to the general lightheartedness prevalent throughout Guts. “I’m feeling a lot happier these days,” she said. “Everything’s pretty good. So I wasn’t going to make something super devastating, a record of ballads.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Rodrigo addressed the internet’s obsession with decoding who her songs are about. “I find myself caring less and less,” she said of the online scrutiny. “Behind the scenes, I do all of the things I am supposed to do and try to be as prepared as I can. People are going to say what they want to say. I feel like the more you try to control it, the more miserable you are, and the bigger it gets. I just write songs; it’s not my job to interpret them for other people.”
Among the performers for the night are Demi Lovato, Doja Cat, Karol G, Kelsea Ballerini, Måneskin, Stray Kids, along with Shakira who’s being honored with the Video Vanguard Award, and Diddy, who earned the Global Icon title.
The MTV Video Music Awards are airing live on MTV from the Prudential Center in New Jersey.
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