Olivia Rodrigo schooled Anthony Fauci on “man crush Mondays” in a new video aimed at pushing young people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The nation’s leading infectious diseases expert and the “good 4 u” singer read tweets from fans in the pro-vaccination video released Friday by the White House.
After Fauci reads aloud a tweet wishing him a “happy man crush Monday” and praising his “intelligence” and “compassion,” he tells Rodrigo, “Well that’s very nice to say that.”
When asked if he knows what the lovey-dovey term means, he responded with a laugh, “No idea.”
“Man crush Monday is just like on Mondays people like post a picture of their boyfriends and be like, ‘Ah, man crush Monday. This is why I love you,'” explained Rodrigo.
The unlikely pair also share music experiences with each other in the four-minute video, which was posted on the White House’s social media accounts.
“If I tell you the greatest concert that I’ve ever been to you’re going to faint,” Fauci, 80, tells the 18-year-old performer. “The reason is, I’m so old it goes back to the late 1950s at the Paramount Theatre in New York City, which was a Motown concert with The Temptations, The Four Tops.”
“The sooner all of us get vaccines, the sooner we can like hang out with our friends and sing songs and all of the fun things,” says Rodrigo.
The video, filmed Wednesday during Rodrigo’s splashy trip to the White House, comes amid a push by the Biden administration to get more shots into the arms of young people.
A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that COVID-19 vaccination coverage for younger Americans has lagged behind rates for older adults.
Rodrigo also promoted her vaccine-focused visit to her massive social media following, sharing images of herself alongside President Biden and Vice President Harris and telling her nearly 15 million Instagram followers that “getting your covid vaccination is the best thing you can do for your health and your loved ones’ health.”
The lighthearted clips with Fauci and Rodrigo stood in contrast to an impassioned, personal plea from Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Thursday urging Americans to get vaccinated and to stop spreading misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic. Murthy revealed that he has lost 10 family members to COVID-19.