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By Lydia Patrick
Life & Trends Reporter
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A cooking video featuring Olivia Rodrigo has sparked an unexpected online debate tied with the "trad wife" label.
Rodrigo, 23, is a Filipino American California native and former Disney Channel alum who skyrocketed to fame with her debut album SOUR, a gutsy and emotionally raw record. The "Deja Vu" singer is known for her witty and diaristic lyrics and heartbreaking yet angsty ballads.
Rodrigo's look is effortlessly cool with a heavy vintage influence. She previously told Vogue: "I like pieces that are kind of funky and weird."
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From Grunge Princess to Pink Rebrand?
Rodrigo has long been adept at pulling off a look. She typically blends grunge with femininity—when she headlined Glastonbury in 2025, she championed this dichotomy, with Union Flag sequined micro‑shorts and a baby tee, paired with fishnets and Dr. Martens.
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Her second Worthy Farm look, a white lace Ludovic de Saint Sernin leather bustier and ruffled lace mini skirt, only reinforced the singer’s chic‑cool edge.
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But in the lead‑up to her third album—which does not yet have a confirmed release date—Rodrigo appears to be leaning into a softer, more whimsical aesthetic. Her trademark purple has been replaced with pink, with subtle hints of a visual rebrand appearing across her Instagram and official website.
For her 23rd birthday, Rodrigo posted an Instagram dump showing off a glamorous look, made up of a pink beaded dress, tiara and feather boa. Her website is now entirely pink, displaying the word "love" on the homepage, and a pink mural with the same swirly lettering has appeared in Los Angeles.
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The 'Vogue' Cooking Video That Sparked It All
The debate kicked off after Rodrigo appeared as British Vogue’s April 2026 cover star and featured in the magazine’s "Now Serving" cooking series. In the video, she makes chicken lumpia—a Filipino spring roll—alongside a Paloma cocktail, while chatting casually about her life and music.
Rodrigo paired the segment with a 1950s-inspired look—a Rodarte Pre‑Spring 2026 pink and red heart‑printed, silk twill, collared mini dress, complete with a silk carnation pin.
That styling choice—combined with the domestic setting—prompted one critic to label the moment "trad wife."
"Olivia Rodrigo as a trad wife is so dystopian," Kale (its_kaley) wrote on Threads. Newsweek reached out to Olivia Rodrigo's agent for comment via email.
Fans Push Back Hard
Many fans were quick to defend the singer. "Are we just letting conservatives coopt the entire concept of women cooking now. what are we even doing here," Lillian Reed posted.
"Olivia Rodrigo is half Filipino so her making lumpia makes sense to me," another user wrote.
"How is this millionaire artist filming something for Vogue suddenly a trad wife," said Diana Umani.
"They think it’s tradwife because of her outfit I just think they chose it because it matched the vibe of the space and the pink with hearts probably alludes to the other hints for her next album similar to the wall," suggested another fan.
"Giving trad wife aesthetic in an ad is the jump scare that’s all, mostly because she usually represents the opposite values," Kale later argued.
What Is a ‘Trad Wife'?
The term "trad wife"—short for "traditional wife"—is typically used to describe women who promote a return to rigid, mid‑20th‑century gender roles, often emphasizing domestic labor, submission to husbands, and rejection of modern feminism. In recent years, it has become associated with online conservative and far‑right subcultures, particularly on TikTok and Instagram.
Caroline Welles, a Democratic strategist, founder of The First Ask, a national organization supporting Democratic women running for state legislature, told Newsweek: "The Rodrigo moment is a small example of a larger trend: she made Filipino food for a Vogue segment, celebrating her heritage, and got labeled a "trad wife." That says everything about the interpretive lens being applied to young women right now and nothing about Olivia Rodrigo."
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According to Welles, society must stop conflating domestic activities with political ideologies.
"Cooking is not a political statement. Femininity is not a manifesto. When we reflexively assign ideological meaning to a woman chopping vegetables, we're doing exactly what we claim to oppose: reducing women to symbols rather than seeing them as full individuals with complex identities, cultural histories, and personal choices," Welles added.
She said this framing is more damaging for women of color whose relationship with the domestic sphere exists in a different realm outside the "predominantly white 'trad wife' influencer ecosystem."
"Olivia Rodrigo has always had a romantic, emotionally expressive aesthetic. That's an artistic identity, not a political alignment. We should be capable of holding that distinction," Welles added.
Erica Choinka, a conservative women's political commentator at Politics For Her, told Newsweek that the label has become a "political slur" from the left.
"The left claims to champion women’s choices, but the moment a woman chooses softness over activism, they treat her like a traitor. It’s ideological policing dressed up as feminism," she said.
Not Exactly a Political Wallflower
Rodrigo’s public record hardly aligns with traditionalist values. She writes from a place of truth and pain about the experiences of modern womanhood.
Notably, in 2022 Rodrigo debuted at the Glastonbury Festival, where British pop star Lily Allen joined her on stage to call out the five U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, dedicating Allen's "F*** You" to them by name.
Rodrigo launched Fund 4 Good, donating tour proceeds to abortion funds and women’s health organizations globally and Planned Parenthood awarded her the 2025 Catalyst of Change Award for reproductive‑rights activism.
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The pink aesthetic itself appears more closely tied to her upcoming album than any ideological shift. In the Now Serving video, Rodrigo joked about her tears while she was cutting onions.
"I’m not actually crying ’cause I’m so moved by thinking about my new album," she said. When asked to describe it in one word, she added: "You know, one word is hard. I feel like the album is very varied. I really wanted to figure out a way to write about joy in this album.
"I feel like my last two albums are very, rightfully so, kind of angsty and heartbroken, and just as a creative endeavor—and also because I was experiencing a lot of joy in my life—I wanted to figure out how to inject that into the songs that I was making."
A ‘Lover Girl’ Era
Rodrigo fronts British Vogue’s April 2026 issue with the tagline "I’m definitely a lover girl. Pop’s new romantic." In her accompanying interview, written by Laura Jane Coulson, she revealed that her next album is 70 per cent complete and described wanting the collection to feel "fun."
Rodrigo also shared that her Pinterest boards are currently filled with babydoll dresses and 70s necklines—reinforcing her move into a new form of stylistic expression.
Rodrigo revealed the album is all about love, and all its messy complexities. "I realized all my favorite romantic love songs were beautiful because they had a tinge of fear or yearning in them," she told Vogue.
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