One advantage of being famous is being able to choose what to wear when you run into your ex.
When you run into an ex, you usually don’t get to choose what you’re wearing. However, if you’re Olivia Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett, who started dating while playing on-screen love interests on Disney’s “High School Musical: The Series”, broke up, and used that breakup to fuel some legitimately chart-topping music, your professional obligations may spare you the surprise encounter, at least publicly. Surely, the season premiere of the television show in which you both appear is as good a time as any to get rid of the funny-seeing-you-here look.
Rodrigo and Bassett both wore all black to the HSMTMTS season 3 red carpet, though this was most likely a happy accident rather than deliberate planning. Bassett wore a cropped, peak-lapelled Saint Laurent black satin jacket and trousers, a simple A-tank, and matching black-painted nails; Rodrigo wore a sweet Nensi Dojaka set. They posed amiably alongside each other, and the effect was probably enhanced by some unintentional sartorial harmony.
It’s certainly difficult to date and become famous while portraying a couple on television, especially if one or both of you become significantly more famous for breaking up in real life. Last summer, as Rodrigo’s album was topping the charts, Bassett reflected on his HSMTMTS casting process, during which the show’s writers told him that his success in the role would be determined by his chemistry with his yet-to-be-cast love interest. “…it was very obvious, in my opinion, that she was the perfect one for it. … I think people can tell when they watch the show. It was just an instant sort of connection ” he said of his final audition with Rodgrigo. Bassett admitted at the end of the year that “[Rodrigo] hasn’t spoken to me since ‘Drivers License’ came out.” But a lot can change in a year, even if only in terms of what one can see on the red carpet.
