Olivia Rodrigo did double duty this past weekend as host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live. And to help get her gig off to a good start, Jack White left her a note of encouragement in her dressing room following his own appearance on the show on April 4.
It was a big week for Rodrigo. In addition to announcing her new tour, she released “Drop Dead,” the lead single from her upcoming album You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love. The song — which Rodrigo performed as a surprise at an open-mic night in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg last week with acoustic guitar accompaniment — became the fourth number one single of her career.
“Drop Dead” debuted at number one, as did the lead singles from her previous two albums, making Rodrigo the first artist to achieve that milestone.
Things only got more exciting as SNL airtime approached. On Friday, during a break from rehearsals at Rockefeller Center in New York City, Rodrigo sat down with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, where she revealed the hidden note White had left in her dressing room — one she’d discovered “literally an hour ago.”
After declaring, “I love Jack White — he’s a wonderful person who always stands up for what’s right,” Rodrigo explained how the note came about.
“I was on the phone with him the other day, and I said, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to host SNL,’” she recalled. “And he said, ‘I’m going to leave a note in your dressing room.’ I was like, ‘Ha ha, funny.’ I feel like I’ve maybe said that to someone too and never done it.”
But White followed through.
“While I was in my room this morning, he sent me a text,” said Rodrigo, whose shown her love for rockers who came before her in recent months. “He’s like, ‘Look up! Keep your head up, you’re going to find something.’”
Rodrigo began searching the room in earnest.
“I started tearing apart the SNL dressing room,” she said. “I was taking the ceiling tiles off.”
After an extended hunt, she finally found the note hidden high inside a closet cubbyhole.
Written on a folded sheet of three-hole-punched paper, it read: “Kill it kid. Love, Jack White.”
Rodrigo later shared video of her search — and the moment of discovery — with Fallon, which you can see below.
