It’s not every day that a nightmare-worthy story hails from Canada. Their unending politeness almost makes it seem impossible for such stories to exist — almost. Never say never though — I mean, just ask Olivia Rodrigo about it.
It turns out, being a global superstar doesn’t exactly shield anyone from misunderstandings with the law — nor does filling multiple concert dates before this mind-boggling incident. In fact, you might even be mistaken for a national threat just for being in the wrong place, at the wrong time — even if you’re Olivia Rodrigo. Well, allow us to explain what happened to the singer — and get ready for a wild ride.
During an interview at The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Rodrigo shared her first experience “getting in trouble with the law.” It happened after her concerts in Canada, while she was en route to Portland. At border control, Olivia was in a room when a group began knocking on the door. At first, she thought it might be a fan asking for a photo — she had, after all, just sold out a concert. But oh, she couldn’t have been more wrong.
Instead, the singer found herself — at three in the morning, no less — in an interrogation room. She was then face-to-face with an armed officer who started questioning her. “Have you ever been arrested before?” he asked. “Are you sure?” he pressed, when she answered no. At this point, exhausted and sleep-deprived, the singer joked that she was starting to wonder if she had been arrested without knowing it. Honestly, who wouldn’t feel the same way?
The officer even warned her that, after she repeatedly insisted she had never been arrested, “lying to a federal officer” could lead to “life in jail.” Honestly, we’d be intimidated too. But that wasn’t all —the interrogation dragged on for a grueling thirty minutes. By this point, Rodrigo was on the brink of a panic attack, fearful that she might not be allowed back into the U.S. — and who could blame her?
Finally, by some grace, the officer thought to ask the multimillion-dollar question: Who exactly was this girl? It took just one more question — “Wait, what’s your name again?” — for both of them to realize this was a huge misunderstanding. Apparently, the authorities were actually searching for a young woman around Rodrigo’s age who looked just like her, had been arrested multiple times, and whose name happened to be… Olivia Rodriguez.
That’s right — it took thirty minutes for the border officer to realize that “Rodrigo” and “Rodriguez” aren’t the same last name and that maybe he should double-check before accusing someone. “I was pissed,” Rodrigo admitted, and while it’s now a story she can share at parties, the internet wasn’t quite as amused. “I would have sued them,” one fan commented on X. “Don’t the cops check the names twice,” asked another user.
While we understand fans’ concern over Olivia’s distress, mistakes are, unfortunately, a very human trait — though they seem to occur with unsettling frequency among law enforcement. Just this past May, for example, a police officer mistook a photographer for a shooter at the Yorktown Center Shopping Mall in Lombard, Illinois. Of course, some mistakes result in irreparable harm, as we all know.
But this time, fortunately, it appears to have been nothing more than a misunderstanding. A mix-up that could have led to her arrest, had she not been one of the most famous women on the planet. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that — can you imagine what would’ve happened to the rest of her tour?