Both of Olivia Rodrigo‘s albums so far have topped the Billboard 200. But even if upcoming third effort You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love breaks that pattern, she feels prepared — thanks to a mindset best described by a signature Camp Rock anthem.
In a Cosmopolitan cover story written by her best friend, Madison Hu, and published Wednesday (April 29), the pop star answered a fill-in-the-blank question about what she thinks would make this next year a success. “Even if my album flops and nobody likes it,” she began. “If I feel like, ‘This is real, this is me/ I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be,’ then it’ll feel like success.”
The line comes from Billboard Hot 100 No. 9 hit “This Is Me,” Demi Lovato’s climactic anthem she sings alongside Joe Jonas at the end of their 2008 breakout Disney Channel movie. Before she and Hu got their start acting on Disney series Bizaardvark, Rodrigo was a major fan of the network. While on her Sour Tour in 2022, she shared a throwback photo of herself as a little girl holding a pretend concert with a setlist that included “This Is Me” as well as several songs by Disney idols the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez.
Even though Rodrigo is ready for however You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love performs commercially, it looks like the project — which arrives June 12 — is going to be a success. Already, first single “Drop Dead” has opened at No. 1 on the Hot 100, making her the first artist to ever debut on top of the chart with the lead tracks from each of her first three albums.
Elsewhere in the interview, the Grammy winner explained why the songwriting process for her third LP has been more similar to debut album Sour, and different from sophomore album Guts.
“With Guts, I was under so much pressure, like, ‘Oh my god, I’m never going to be able to make another good song,’” she said. “It wasn’t even making music to make music. It was making music to please people or prove something.”
“With this album, I actually was like, ‘I’m done with the sophomore one. Now I can have fun again,’” she continued. “I was writing songs the way I did when I was 16, purely for fun.”
See Rodrigo’s cover of Cosmo and photos from the shoot below.