There was only one Punk Rock Princess in the Early aughts, and Avril Lavigne gladly wore the crown. The inspiration for millions of preteen girls to wear neckties and arm warmers, and the basis for practically every outfit sold at Hot Topic, Lavigne opened the door to alternative music for many young listeners and kicked down the invisible barricades keeping girls from feeling at home in the world of alternative music. A trendsetter and willing to spit in the convention of what it meant to be feminine, the pop-punk rocker shaped a generation of music listeners, fashionistas, and wannabe punks.
Despite her more than 20-year-long career, and meager seven album offerings, the singer still tops the charts when she drops a new album, easily striking that nostalgic chord for older listeners while engaging with the younger crowd with her defiant-as-ever pop punk glamour. But how is the nearly 40-year-old singer still maintaining her punk rock legacy decades after her debut in 2002?
Is Avril Lavigne still making music?
As a young artist, Lavigne had to fight for producers to hear her, and understand what kind of music she wanted to make. In the early 2000s, angsty girls like P!nk and Lavigne were unheard of, the Canadian singer told CBC that as a young woman, “I was really gravitat[ing] towards, like, more rock music at that time. And that’s what I wanted my music to sound like. Some people couldn’t wrap their head around that.”
Her instinct was spot on, “Sk8er Boi” still plays on the radio, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone over the age of 20 who can’t sing every line. A talented songwriter, Lavigne has a hand in most of her songs and she even co-wrote Kelly Clarkson’s 2004 hit “Breakaway.” She’s taken that spirit for creative freedom and applied it to working with young musicians, helping them create. She’s worked with young artists like Willow Smith, Mod Sun, and Blackbear as well as established musicians like Nicki Minaj, Machine Gun Kelly, and Chad Kroeger.
Lavigne has released seven albums over her career, sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, and — though she has never won — she’s been nominated for eight Grammys. Despite her lack of success there, she has won more than 150 awards over her career and broke the record for the youngest female soloist to top the UK charts in 2003.
Lavigne is massively popular in Japan — she is the only female Western artist to sell more than one million copies in Asia for her first three albums. The Punk Princess has rereleased several of her bestselling tunes in Japanese and spends half her time overseas where her younger sister Michelle lives with her husband Japanese rocker Ryota Kohama, of ONE OK ROCK.
What was Avril’s 2014 health scare?
In 2014, Lavigne was diagnosed with Lyme disease, an incredibly common and fully treatable illness spread by ticks. As per the CDC, it is, “the most common vector-borne disease in the United States” and is “caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and rarely, Borrelia mayonii.” Lyme disease causes painful complications in the body’s joints, nervous system, and organs and is characterized by fever, headache, fatigue, and skin rash.
Lavigne struggled to find a diagnosis for months, all the while the parasite was settling in, according to Lavigne, ” It went undiagnosed for so long that I was kind of [in trouble].” The Canadian singer was fairly certain she was going to die, and it became the inspiration for her 2018 hit, “Head Above Water.”
Luckily for Lavigne and her millions of fans, a friend suggested that it might be Lyme disease, and the musician reached out to Yolanda Hadid, mother of Bella and Gigi Hadid, who had recently published a book about her struggles with the ailment and referred Lavigne to a specialist. It took years for the antibiotics to fully kill the parasite, but Lavigne says it wasn’t all bad. The experience allowed her to reach a state of being present to appreciate what she had and most importantly, “This is the first break I’ve ever taken since I was 15.”
As of 2023, Lavigne is back on tour and feeling better than ever. She considers the experience to be the “battle of her lifetime” and is ready to turn her “renewed voice and energy for [her] life” and make some new music.
What about Avril Lavigne‘s love life?
Since she was young, Lavigne has been a serial monogamist, but that doesn’t mean she’s had a boring love life. She met her first husband, Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley, in 2004 and the two started dating two years later when she was 19. They married two years later and were blissfully wed for four years before calling it quits. The two are still good friends according to Lavigne and even collaborated on her Goodbye Lullaby, the year after their divorce.
She dated The Hills Brody Jenner from 2010 to 2012. When the couple split, Jenner was the first to deny speculation that there was bad blood between the two, posting via Twitter that, “Avril has always been there for me and is the closest person to my heart. I love her,” to which Lavigne responded, “Luv u 2!!! @brodyjenner.”
It wasn’t long before she fell hard for Chad Kroeger, the Nickelback frontman, whom she collaborated with on her self-titled album. Kroger proposed one month after the pair began dating, and it was just one year later, on their anniversary, that the musicians announced their separation. Lavigne has maintained relationships with all of her exes, Kroger included, after they split in 2015, she said, “We are still, and forever will be, the best of friends, and will always care deeply for each other.”
Lavigne took several years off from dating as she dealt with her health struggles, but began dating musician Mod Sun in 2022 after collaborating on the song “Flames.” After about a year of dating, Mod Sun proposed, and the two had an on-again-off-again relationship for several months before calling it off in 2023.
Shortly after her split with Mod Sun, Lavigne was spotted with the rapper Tyga. The pair dated for just short of half a year before calling it quits. It seems that Lavigne is taking a break from love for the moment, but she told Billboard in 2018, “I love love. The way I look at it is, I married my long-term.”
Conspiracy Surrounding her death
Perhaps one of the best signs of Lavigne’s legacy is the bizarre but consistently repeated myth that the singer was replaced in 2005 by a lookalike. The theory says that Lavigne couldn’t handle the constant pressures of stardom and hired a lookalike, Melissa, to fill in for her. This theory says that Lavigne died at some point during her early days of fame and the record company hid her death by pushing Melissa into taking her place. “Evidence” for the swap comes from Lavigne’s change in wardrobe, clues left by Melissa in songs — “Slipped Away,” “My Happy Ending,” and “Nobody’s Home” are all supposedly part of Melissa’s cry for help — and photos allegedly showing Lavigne with the name “Melissa” written on her hands.
The claim is patently false, with the Brazilian perpetrator eventually coming forward and declaring his true intentions. According to Vice News, he created the theory as an experiment to show, that with the right information, you can make anyone on the internet believe anything.
What is she doing now?
Lavigne is still making music. Her most recent album, Love Sux, dropped in 2022, and the singer is consistently touring and collaborating. When she isn’t in the studio, Lavigne has an active social media presence and can be found on TikTok and Instagram.
