Olivia Rodrigo’s Ethnicity and Family Roots

Father’s side

At 14 she told her family story in a short Disney Channel video for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Her relatives sent old photos for it, and she described her great-grandfather’s crossing from the Philippines by boat.^[1][5] In a 2018 interview with the Center for Asian American Media she added that he is her grandmother’s father and that her grandfather is Filipino as well. Her father grew up in a home where Filipino food was always being cooked and his grandfather spoke Tagalog. Lumpia, the Filipino spring rolls, are still part of the family’s Thanksgiving.^[6]

Her father, Chris Rodrigo, works as a family therapist.^[2][4] He saw the Philippines for the first time in October 2024, when he traveled there with his daughter for her Guts tour concert at the Philippine Arena in Bulacan, north of Manila.^[7] In front of 55,000 people she called out “Proud Pinoy ako!”, Tagalog for “I’m a proud Filipino.”^[8] The concert also made her think of her grandfather, as she told Rolling Stone a few weeks later.^[7] In a video interview with W Magazine in November 2024 she said that her grandpa, who had died earlier that year, had been very into astrology. He drew up her birth chart when she was born and told her parents she would be very emotional and a performing artist.^[9] The US edition of the Philippine Daily Inquirer identified him as her Filipino grandfather.^[10]

Mother’s side

Her mother, Jennifer Rodrigo, is a teacher.^[2][4] Encyclopaedia Britannica describes her as being of German and Irish ancestry.^[3] Rodrigo told Zane Lowe of Apple Music in 2021 that her mother comes from Wisconsin, is “the sweetest, purest woman you’ll ever meet” and loves punk and metal.^[11]