After 95 electrifying tour dates across the globe, Olivia Rodrigo is finally off-duty. Last week, the singer wrapped up the GUTS World Tour with a four-night run in Sydney, Australia.
“I'm so excited to have a little bit of time off,” Rodrigo tells Teen Vogue, her voice raspy and warm. “But this happens every time I get off of a tour — the second I touch down, I get really sick. I think it's my body being like, ‘Just chill out. You just need to watch movies in bed all day.’ So that's sort of the vibe that I've been doing.”
Rodrigo is taking a necessary pause to “eat some chicken soup," “listen to [her] body,” and recharge; she's been on her second tour for almost a full year, hitting the biggest cities in the world alongside openers Chappell Roan, Remi Wolf, The Breeders, and Benee. Now, the pop star is bringing the GUTS World Tour home 4 U by way of a Netflix concert special, available to stream today, October 29.
Olivia Rodrigo: GUTS World Tour was filmed during the fifth of Rodrigo's six consecutive hometown shows in Los Angeles, California. The concert movie brings viewers backstage with Rodrigo before and after her show, and right onstage with her while she performs the biggest hits from her critically-acclaimed sophomore album GUTS, released earlier this year. The film even features Rodrigo and Chappell Roan's surprise “HOT TO GO!” duet.
The GUTS World Tour was Rodrigo's largest tour in yet in terms of audience size and production scale, and night after night, the 21-year-old consistently delivered a glittery, berserk, powerfully emotive show. Olivia Rodrigo: GUTS World Tour is the second film we've gotten from Rodrigo, following her 2022 Disney+ documentary about her debut album SOUR. Rodrigo has grown lightyears as both a performer and a young woman since that doc, and in her very first concert special, her confidence and commitment to that growth is palpable in the way she headbangs, kicks, and floats across the arena stage.
Below, Teen Vogue hopped on the phone with Rodrigo to discuss the concert film, her special Philippines tour stop, her tour traditions, politically engaging her fans, and whether she'd ever take on a Beyoncé-style immersive concert documentary.
Olivia Rodrigo: You know what, I actually say, “Let's make Los Angeles our b*tch.”
OR: [Laughing] I'm not as PG as I probably should have been, but I do also try to make the show my best. I think every show is different. Some shows, your best is you're sick and your body is hurting and your best is not as good as some other shows where you're feeling 100% top-notch yourself. I always try to take care of my voice, I'm always going on vocal rest and I'm very diligent about taking care of my body and making sure that I have as much energy as I can possibly have on stage.
OR: A little more profane!
OR: It depends. Sometimes when there's a really cool person in the audience that I look up to, I get a little nervous. But having my mom and my best friends in the audience always actually calms me down. I just think about doing the show and watching it from their perspective, and I know that they'll love me even if I get up there and don't sing a single note and just fall flat on my face, so there's a little bit of an element of confidence that I can gather from that.
OR: I think this is my one and done. [Laughing] I got the tattoo and it's already coming off a little bit because it's on my hand. So I kind of did it half-assed. It was a little bit noncommittal in the first place because I got the tattoo on my hand, so it's probably going to be off in five years. But this is my one commemorative tattoo and it's my only tattoo that I really got right now, so I think that makes it even more special.
OR: Well, we show a little bit of it in the movie, but before every show, me and my band and my dancers, we'll all gather around, we'll make a little circle and we'll sing a funny song about the city we're in or take a pop song and make it about circles because we're [standing] in this circle. And it's always so much fun and it gets me really hyped to do the show and it just makes me feel connected to everyone that I'm up there on stage with. So, I hope that I'll do that forever.
OR: The most emotional one for me usually is “Pretty Isn't Pretty,” this song that I wrote and I really loved… it's not like the most popular song on the album or a single by any means, but every time I sing it, I always look out in the audience and there's always just a few people who really feel that song and who look like it means so much to them. And that makes such an impact on me and it really makes me feel connected to everyone and connected to the message of that song. So that's probably the most emotional one for me — I shed a few tears singing it the other day when I was playing the last show, I was kind of trying to hold in my crying a little bit for that one.
OR: I love looking at the audience during “Traitor." There's always these little girls and they're six or seven, they're so young, and they're screaming every lyric and crying, bawling, screaming, feeling so much emotion. And I always just think like… “Oh my gosh, who hurt you?” You're six years old, who betrayed you? But it's so beautiful to see them have this outpouring of emotion, even if they haven't been in a relationship quite yet. I just think it's so fun and beautiful.
OR: Yeah, it's so funny.
OR: Oh yeah, I really loved the shots during “Making the Bed,” where I'm laying on the stage and there's a camera behind me and you can kind of see what it looks like from my perspective on the stage. I think that's something so special that you couldn't have gotten if you just bought a ticket and went to the show. That's why I love this movie so much, you get to see every perspective. That one's really beautiful to me, and I remember seeing the cut of it [a while] back and being really wowed.
OR: Yeah, I'm so grateful! I'm so grateful that Netflix wanted to do it with me. I just had so much fun doing these shows every night and so it's a beautiful thing for me to have this time capsule forever that I can show my kids: “This is what I did every night for nine months.” I'm really happy about it.
OR: Yeah! Oh my gosh. Yeah, that would be really interesting. This was my first big arena tour and I was learning so much about music and performance, but also just staying sane and taking care of my health behind the scenes. It's a really interesting endeavor, and I think definitely not as glamorous as people might think it is. Yeah, I would be open to that, for sure.
OR: I was so excited to do the Philippines show. I have always wanted to go there. That's the one show I was looking forward to the most in all 95 dates that we put up, that was the one that I was looking forward to just because I've never been and it's a place that has so much significance to me and my family, and so I really wanted to make it special.
So we did this thing called Silver Star tickets with the help of Amex, where we got to discount all of the tickets. [They were] the equivalent of 25 American dollars for each ticket, because I really wanted to make sure that it was accessible and it was really exciting to me to think that maybe someone who usually couldn't afford to go to a concert could afford to go to this one.
Then we added the elements of donating all of my proceeds to this charity called Jhpiego that provides healthcare for women and girls in the Philippines and more rural areas where healthcare is hard to come by. It was just a really wonderful, special experience and I knew I wanted to give back to that community who has just given so much to me, and who has embraced me with open arms throughout my whole career.
OR: I'm so proud of all of the work that we've done and all of the money that we've gotten to donate to all these charities through the Fund 4 Good. Something I'm really proud of is that we donated a lot to abortion funds throughout America, [these] grassroots organizations that raise money so that they can provide funding to women who need an abortion but maybe are in a state where that's not available to them or it's illegal. They'll provide a flight and a hotel room and child care so that a woman can be free to get the healthcare that she needs and deserves.
Hopefully in the future, I hope that we won't need abortion funds anymore, and I hope that they'll be legal in every state and they'll all be affordable. But yeah, I'm so excited to just learn more about all of these amazing charities that are doing such great work for women and just continue to support causes that I feel are important.
OR: When I do a concert, I look out in the audience and so much of my fanbase is young girls and women, and so I think I feel a kinship and maybe even a responsibility towards them to make them feel seen and heard and protected, whether that's in the songs that I write or in the charities that I support through my tour. This election is just so important, especially for women, and we really have to vote to protect ourselves and our rights — this tour, the timing of it has felt especially important.
OR: Oh my gosh, that's a great question. I will put them in my bus or in my dressing room. I have an entire luggage that's sitting over there in my living room, unpacked, full of just gifts and things that people have given me. I think my favorite one is [from] the Philippines, this sweet girl that I met crocheted me this beautiful bag and this bonnet that I find really chic, and so I've been wearing it. And if anyone asks me, I'm going to say, "Yeah, a beautiful girl in the Philippines gave it to me. You can't buy it, it's one of a kind."
The Olivia Rodrigo: GUTS World Tour concert special is now streaming exclusively on Netflix.
