Olivia Rodrigo has condemned the reaction to her recent babydoll dress appearances as "disturbing," arguing it reveals how society has normalised paedophilia.
The 23-year-old American singer addressed the controversy during an interview on The New York Times' Popcast, released today.
"That's been making me so upset," Rodrigo said of the criticism surrounding her outfit choices.
"Not even for me. People can say whatever they want."
The Grammy-winning artist wore babydoll-style dresses for her new album artwork, the "Drop Dead" music video, and a recent Spotify performance, prompting weeks of online debate.
"What's really disturbing is I have worn outfits that are maybe revealing on stage," she explained.
"And that wasn't inappropriate, but me fully covered up in a dress that people deemed to be childlike was inappropriate."
Rodrigo pointed to a stark double standard in how her wardrobe choices have been received.
The singer claimed that the dress was a lot less revealing than the outfits she normally wears
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She noted that performing in a "sparkly bra and little shorts" drew no accusations of impropriety, yet a dress covering her body sparked outrage simply because critics perceived it as childlike.
"It just shows how we really normalise paedophilia in our culture," she said.
The singer also took aim at the broader messaging directed at young women about their clothing.
"It's just this rhetoric we're fed as girls since we're so little, which is, don't wear that because then a man is going to sexualise your body and it's your fault," she said. "It's so weird."
She claimed that society was "normalising paedophilia"
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Rodrigo maintained she did not consider herself to look "sexy" in the outfit at all.
The singer cited 1990s alternative rock figures as the inspiration behind her look.
"I was like, 'This is so cool. I feel I look like Kathleen Hanna or Courtney Love', all these people who are my heroes, and I felt cool and comfortable in it," Rodrigo explained.
Hanna fronted Bikini Kill, a band central to the riot grrrl movement that emerged as a feminist response to misogyny in punk music.
Love, meanwhile, popularised the "kinderwhore" aesthetic with her band Hole, combining babydoll dresses with aggressive punk performance.
Rodrigo rejected the notion of altering her style to avoid unsavoury interpretations.
"I just think if we start dressing in a way that's like, 'I don't want some f***ing freak to think that I'm sexy like a baby' or some crazy thing like that, I think it's losing the plot a little bit," she said.
The singer performed for a Spotify event
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The backlash centred primarily on Rodrigo's appearance in the Petra Collins-directed "Drop Dead" video, released in April and filmed at the Palace of Versailles.
In the clip, she wore a pastel-blue babydoll dress with visible bloomers and white knee socks.
Earlier this month, the singer appeared at Spotify's Billions Club Live concert at Teatro Grec in Barcelona wearing a pink-and-white floral puff-sleeve babydoll dress paired with matching ruffled bloomers and black Dr Martens boots.
Critics on social media accused her of adopting a "Lolita" aesthetic, though others defended the look as a clear 1990s throwback.
Rodrigo's third studio album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, is scheduled for release on 12 June.
She has already released singles "Drop Dead" and "The Cure" ahead of the record.
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