A Blurred Line Between The Hunger Games Saga and the Philippines

Janice L.

April 26, 2024

Olivia Rodrigo performing on the opening night of her new ‘GUTS World Tour’ - Christopher Polk/Getty Images

At barely 20 years old, Filipino-American singer-songwriter, Olivia Rodrigo has received 10 nominations and 3 awards at the Grammys. She has been nominated for Best Rock Song, Best Pop Vocal Album, Best Pop Solo Performance, Music Video of The Year, and twice for Song of The Year, Album of The Year, and Record of The Year. Olivia Rodrigo has won New Artist of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Pop Solo Performance. You might think that this pop star’s career has already peaked, but in reality, she’s just getting started. But before we look too far ahead, let’s go back in time to see how she began her career. 

Olivia Rodrigo, the singer and actor was born and raised in California where she developed a passion and talent for music at an early age. At the ripe age of 5, Olivia began to take singing lessons. Soon after, she was competing in contests and talent shows. Four years later, she started taking piano lessons. At first, she hated playing the piano but later discovered that the skill helped her compose music and song lyrics. Her earlier songs were about heartbreak even though she had never had a relationship before. “I literally wrote breakup songs before I ever held a boy’s hand,” she told People.

Aside from her singing and piano lessons, Olivia also decided to take up acting classes at the age of 6. She started by joining school plays and eventually started to audition for professional roles. Her parents supported her by driving 90 miles to Los Angeles for auditions. However, she didn’t succeed right away and her parents eventually advised her to stop trying out,  because they wanted her to focus more on her music rather than her acting. Olivia didn’t want to give up so she continued to audition.

After around 4 years, she finally landed her first lead role as Grace in ‘An American Girl: Grace Stirs Up Success in 2015’. When she was 12 years old, she was chosen to be Paige Oliver on Disney Channel’s TV series Bizaardvark, which aired from 2016 to 2019. It was during this time that she had to learn how to play the guitar. At 15 years old, Olivia Rodrigo was cast as one of the main characters in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, as Nini Salazar-Roberts. This show premiered in 2019 and ran until 2022.

Although she was acting on screen, she continued to compose her own songs. The first song she shared on Instagram, ‘I Am More’, resulted in Disney+ asking her to write a song for HSM:TM:TS. She composed the hit ballad ‘All I Want’ for the series at just 16 years old. The song landed a spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2020. The following year, she composed another song with her co-star Joshua Bassett called ‘Just for a Moment’, which was also performed on the show. 

Just a year later, Olivia Rodrigo released her first hit single ‘Drivers License’, which quickly reached #1 on the Billboard Top 100. At that time, she became the youngest person to reach the top of the chart. It broke records as it was recorded as the most streams of a non-holiday song in a day and week. It was played 17 million times in a day and 66 million in a week. Within a few months, she released another pop hit that she co-wrote called “Deja Vu”. The song debuted at number eight on the Billboard Top 100. She was the first singer to have 2 singles on the list.

After 3 seasons in HSM:TM:TS, Rodrigo left the show as she was given new opportunities for a music career. She decided to produce a full-length album rather than sticking to her old plan of releasing singles one at a time. To complete sour, she worked 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. She wrote or co-wrote every song on the album which Nigro produced. Another song on the album, ‘Good 4 u’ hit the top of the charts as soon as it came out, proving that Rodrigo was not just a one-hit-wonder. 

“I’m a songwriter who writes from a place of authenticity and truth,” She shared with Billboard. “And truthfully, love and happiness and everything weren’t feelings that I was feeling at the time. And what’s the point of putting out a record if it isn’t something that you feel is important to say to people?” 

Olivia Rodrigo comments on her album SOUR, saying that she is proud of its heartfelt songs and the way they address emotional experiences like heartbreak. Olivia’s documentary ‘Driving Home 2 u’ captures the process of making the record.

Olivia Rodrigo receiving a Grammy during the awards in 2022 - Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg became friends during their time together as teammates in karting. 12 years later, they would become teammates once more. But over the course of four years, their ambition to win the world championship would tear them apart.

As teenagers, Hamilton and Rosberg were incredibly close. When they were teammates in karting the two often shared hotel rooms together and subsequently destroyed them. Their karting team principal Dino Chiesa spoke about the common occurrence of wrestling in their shared room, one instance even resulting in a mattress being thrown out of a window. 

However, even in their childhood, Hamilton and Rosberg were fierce rivals. Former Formula 1 (F1) driver Robert Kubica recalls when he would go out for pizza with the pair, saying “They would even have races to eat pizza, always eating two at a time.” Furthermore, Kubica has said "There was always competition. They always wanted to win, to beat each other. But they didn't fight. It was friendly competition. There was always laughing afterwards.”

For any ambitious karter, the end goal of your career is most likely to get a seat in F1, often referred to as the ‘pinnacle of motorsport’. This is what a young Rosberg and Hamilton dreamed of doing. "We were talking about how cool it would be, one day, if we were in Formula 1, just how cool it would be to be team-mates. We said it several times," Hamilton recounts. The two would become teammates in F1, but their friendship wouldn't last, as the battle for the championship tore what was once a close relationship apart.

Most people can remember a time when they competed against one of their friends. Whether it was in a race, or a matter of who could do better at a task, it is almost a guarantee that we clash with even our closest friends once in a while. In those situations, we usually come out of it still being friends. But this was not the case for Hamilton and Rosberg, and their fallout would occur in the public eye, truly demonstrating how intense competition and the pressure to win can shatter even the strongest bonds.

Red (and Yellow) Flags

Even the raw talent of Lewis Hamilton could not get him on Mercedes for his first few seasons, and the same went for Nico Rosberg. Hamilton started his F1 career in McLaren, where he would stay from 2007 to 2012 before joining Mercedes. Rosberg would find his start in F1 a year earlier than Hamilton, spending his rookie season in Williams until the 2010 season where he would move to Mercedes. At the start of their careers, the two would remain close, even sharing a podium in the 2008 Melbourne Grand Prix.

Then, Bahrain 2014. Rosberg and Hamilton wheel-to-wheel battling for first place. As the race went on, Hamilton came out on top, winning the Grand Prix. Rosberg however, was opposed. Saying on the team radio “Someone needs to tell Lewis that move was not on!”. Despite this, no big fight came out of the race, their rivalry being in a tender state. What did come out, however, was that Rosberg had reportedly used an engine mode banned by Mercedes in the final laps of the race in order to give himself more power than Hamilton. This would come back to bite Rosberg during the 2014 Spanish Grand Prix as Hamilton kept their gap of 0.6 seconds by using the very same banned engine modes. While this did not ruin their friendship, because Rosberg had used underhanded techniques to attempt to beat Hamilton, their relationship was definitely damaged due to it. Both of them wanted to win and, as seen by Hamilton using the banned engine mode in response, they were walking a fine line between friendly and heated competition. Both of their attitudes and reactions would push their friendship closer and closer to a rivalry.

Tensions between the two heat up during qualifying for the 2014 Monaco Grand Prix. Both Hamilton and Rosberg made it through Q1 and Q2 with no problem, but a controversial event would take place during Q3. Rosberg claimed provisional pole position with a lap time of 1:15.9897 seconds. Despite Rosberg’s pole lap, Hamilton appeared to be encroaching on his time, with fresh soft tires and an ever improving lap time, Hamilton seemed to be ready to take pole position. During the last lap of qualifying, Hamilton gained the advantage over Rosberg as he gained two tenths of a second during the first sector, with his teammate losing one tenth. In spite of that, Rosberg would bring out the yellow flags by twisting his steering wheel to correct right then left and so on, not helped by a lock up of his front-right wheel. The yellow flags made every car following Rosberg slow down, preventing Hamilton from gaining pole and eventually resulting in a win for Rosberg. Hamilton was far from pleased at this event, responding to the report of a yellow flag with “Ah that was very good of him (Rosberg), very good!”. His displeasure would further be seen during a post race interview, where an interviewer asks Hamilton about how he will mend bridges with Rosberg, Hamilton responds with “well we’re not friends.” 

Later on in the week, Hamilton and Rosberg appeared to repair their relationship, with Hamilton posting a picture of the two in their karting days, writing “We’ve been friends a long time, and as friends we had our ups and downs. Today we spoke and we’re cool, still friends” While Hamilton and Rosberg seemed to be friends once more, the incident in Monaco proved as a warning sign for the future of the two. The cracks in their friendship only grew larger and larger as the season moved on and they found themselves battling each other for the lead of both the races and the world championship. 

The two Mercedes would never fully crash into each other during any of their conflicts in 2014. However, perhaps this was due to the infancy of their rivalry, as neither teammate truly knew what the other would do, or reasonably believed their teammate would follow the teams orders. This goes for Rosberg during the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix, where Hamilton would disobey team commands to let Rosberg pass him, causing Rosberg to miss out on the podium.

After the Hungarian GP, Rosberg was left to sit on his feelings as the summer break approached, fuming after Hamilton went unpunished by the team. The summer break came and went, and Rosberg's lack of perceived justice could have been what pushed him to make the risky moves he would in the following Grand Prix.

Crash and Burn

No team wants their drivers to crash, especially if it involves their teammate. Unfortunately for Mercedes, Hamilton and Rosbergs rivalry would transition from passive-aggressive, to full blown aggression on the track.

The 2014 Belgian Grand Prix appears to be going extremely well for Mercedes, with Hamilton and Rosberg in line for an ideal 1-2 finish. But these hopes are dashed away as Rosberg makes contact with Hamilton, puncturing his left rear tire during lap 2. Different stories emerge about the nature of Rosberg’s move. Hamilton claims Rosberg said he did it to ‘make a point’ whereas Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff opposes these claims, stating that “it wasn’t deliberately crashing. That is nonsense.” We as the public won't ever truly know which side is telling the truth, but either way, Spa 2014 had tensions between the two heating up.

Flash forward to 2015, Rosberg wins in Abu Dhabi, but Hamilton wins the championship. There is no better example of the degraded state of their relationship. Hamilton tosses Rosberg his P2 cap in the cooldown room. What does Rosberg do? Chuck it right back at him, while he sits in a chair, supporting his head with his hand and no smile anywhere on his face. Compared to their previous seasons and shared celebrations, the end of the 2015 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix truly showcases how their friendship has been torn up by their time competing against each other.

2016 would be Rosberg’s last season in F1, and in that time, he would crash into Hamilton multiple times. In the first lap of the Spanish Grand Prix, Hamilton would spin out on the grass and take out Rosberg, ending both their races. Then, the two would make contact during the last lap of the Austrian Grand Prix. While both of these crashes would harm their races, Rosberg emerged victorious as he won the World Drivers Championship (WDC), and then retired.

Present Day

First, it must be known that we will never truly know what happened with the two behind closed doors, not only during their time racing together, but currently as well. As it stands, the two live in the same building in Monaco, and Hamilton has been said to send large gifts to Rosberg's daughters. The only information we will get is from the paddock or the rare bit of information the two give. No declarations of friendship have been made, but they do appear to be on friendlier terms than 2016.