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Being a pop star must be pretty great for the most part – the travel, the money, the adoring fans screaming your lyrics back at you… But there’s a less glamorous reality that stardom doesn’t prepare you for, according to Olivia Rodrigo: the smells.
Specifically, the poopy, pissy smell of fans who wear diapers just to hold their place in the front row.
Speaking recently on Kiss FM, the 23-year-old American singer, who has just released her latest album ‘you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love’, said: “I have been to certain concerts and certain festivals where people wear diapers so that they can be front row of the show.”
Then, with the calm resignation of someone who has truly seen things, she added: “That’s been an experience as a performer that I have… smelled.”
What makes this revelation even more harrowing is the realisation that that the aroma wouldn’t have just lingered in the crowd. It would have travelled – drifting, uninvited, over barricades, through the photo pit, slipping past security, and arriving at the nostrils of poor Olivia herself.
Spare a thought, too, for the innocent concertgoers caught in the blast radius. A truly shitty situation to be near, in every possible sense.
Concert air quality, for the record, is usually an unpleasant but manageable spectrum: Cigarette smoke? Tolerable. A passing sour raspberry vape cloud? Survivable. The faint whiff of BO? Grim, but expected. But a dirty diaper? Shame on you.
Rodrigo, undeterred, is now gearing up for The Unraveled Tour: 86 sold out shows across North America and Europe, opening 25 September in Hartford and wrapping up on 10 May 2027 at London’s O2.
For those who managed to secure tickets, good for you – but you may want to consider positioning yourselves a few rows back.