Joshua Bassett is ready to introduce himself and not have the songs by his ex, Olivia Rodrigo define who he is anymore.
In a vulnerable interview with GQ, the 20-year-old actor admitted, "I feel like a lot of this last year people haven't seen me as a human being." After "Drivers License" came out, Joshua said he began receiving death threats and was afraid to leave his New York City home.
"I would see TikToks with like 50 million views and 10 million likes saying, 'If I ever see that kid on the street, I'm going to f****** kill him," Joshua recalled. "It's hard to see that." He also recalled the time he was at a cafe and the staff repeated Olivia's songs until he got up and left.
Joshua has since moved out of New York -- now saying he lives "nowhere" -- and is learning to cope with the mental and emotional scars of the past year, which caused some long-repressed memories to come flooding back.
"I experienced sexual abuse a lot in my childhood," he confided to GQ. "I didn't remember that until last year, which is pretty insane. I buried it so far." He was also reminded of the time he was taken advantage of by a "much older man" when he was a teenager.
Joshua plans to unpack his trauma through a series of "heavy talks" on an upcoming podcast, to "help people who are experiencing that." He intends to release it next year.
Joshua dropped three new songs on Friday, which appear to reference his famous ex. "I finally found the courage to speak up for myself," he said, then added, "I’m not here to expose people. It was eating me alive, and I couldn’t keep it in anymore."