Olivia O Brien

Olivia Gail O’Brien was born on November 26, 1999, in Thousand Oaks, California. She developed an interest in music from a young age, starting to sing at seven and teaching herself to play guitar and piano. Her early musical endeavors began around the age of 13. O’Brien attended Justin-Siena High School in Napa, California. Her early experiences with music creation also involved navigating social dynamics during her teenage years.

O’Brien’s career breakthrough occurred in 2016 when she collaborated with Gnash on the single “I Hate U, I Love U.” This collaboration followed Gnash discovering her cover of one of his songs on SoundCloud and her sending him an original track. The song achieved considerable commercial success, reaching number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States and number one in Australia. This led to her securing a recording contract with Island Records. Under this label, she subsequently released her debut solo single, “Trust Issues,” in August 2016, and continued to release additional singles such as “Root Beer Float” featuring Blackbear and “Find What You’re Looking For.” Her debut extended play, “It’s Not That Deep,” was released in November 2017. She made her television debut in July 2016 alongside Gnash on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”

Her debut studio album, “Was It Even Real?,” was released in April 2019. Following this, she explored an innovative “micromixtape” series, with “It Was a Sad F***ing Summer” in November 2019 and “The Results Of My Poor Judgement” in February 2020. A track from the latter, “Josslyn,” gained significant popularity through TikTok, leading to its re-release as an EP and subsequent radio airplay. In 2021, she released “Episodes: Season 1,” which included a collaboration with Oli Sykes. In 2023, O’Brien announced her departure from Island Records and has since released music independently, including the extended plays “Love & Limerence” and “Everywhere I Go, There I Am” in 2024, under her own independent label, Girlhood Records, distributed through ADA of Warner Music Group.