Her "anti-Britney" schtick made her an instant superstar. Her debut smash single, "Complicated," spent 16 consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Adult Top 40 chart. As CosmoGIRL!’s entertainment editor at the time, I was thrilled to book her for our "rising star" column, ready to give our readers an intimate look at the punk princess with the relatable lyrics. We knew we’d found the voice of a generation.
While Avril was one of the few breakout stars who actually went on to become a CosmoGIRL! cover girl, 24 years later, I still cannot hear any of her hit songs without cringing at the memory of the single most awkward, painful, and agonizingly difficult celebrity interview of my decades-long career.
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Avril threw up a brick wall at every turn.
Honestly, I was ready to work with that. But it was downhill from there.
When I asked about her songwriting process with her guitar player, Evan, and what their latest collaboration was about, she offered: “Um... My life, and what it's like right now.”
I got her to admit that in school, “my teachers hated me . . . because I never did my work. I never paid attention in school.” So I naturally followed up by asking if she was writing lyrics instead. Her reply? “I do remember writing a couple of songs in class but not very many.”
“I usually can tell if it's a real friend or not...I'm really good at reading people,” Avril revealed. I asked, “What's something that people do that you know they’re not being sincere?” I could hear Avril’s eyes rolling back into her head as she answered: “I just can tell when they're like fake and just say like, ‘Hi!’ and like whatever . . . I don't know. I can totally tell.”
Me:“What is skater punk?”
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The Ultimate Editorial Salvage Job
Finally, the interview equivalent of pulling teeth without anesthesia ended when Avril abruptly cut me off with: “I have to go, because I have another interview that I'm supposed to be doing right now.”
I know how difficult it is to be 17 and famous. I built a career interviewing many “Avrils” who were uncomfortable and unsure how to present themselves. I knew to be patient and give them grace. I expected Avril to lean into being the “anti-Britney,” but I didn't have much to work with.
To make the piece come together, I had to channel my best Dr. Frankenstein and cobble together fractions of sentences and turn sleepy, disjointed mumblings into cohesive paragraphs that painted her as an insightful, fierce, "old soul." Reading the final version that ran in the October 2002 issue of CosmoGIRL!, you would never guess she was anything but thoughtful and profound. We spun a teenager who was literally yawning into the phone into a commanding pop-rock savior.
The Teen Mag Aftermath
The funniest part of this disaster? I wasn’t the only one struggling. Not long after my interview ran, One Tree Hill star Hilarie Burton, then a VJ on MTV’s TRL, admitted to me in a separate interview that Avril was the absolute worst guest they had to deal with, finding her to be “very apathetic.” We actually printed Hilarie's candid complaint!
Want to hear about Lauren’s Y2K adventures in teen magazines? Head over to The Teen Mag Time Machine, and check Parade.com next week for another excerpt!
Next, Lindsay Lohan’s Lost 2004 ‘Mean Girls’ Interview Just Surfaced—and Her Real-Life Celebrity Roommate Will Shock You (Exclusive)
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