Avril Lavigne and the hoax of being replaced by a lookalike

For many years now, Avril Lavigne has been at the center of one of the craziest conspiracy theories on the internet, which still manages to find space in conversations and interviews. It happened recently, when the singer of “Sk8er boi” was a guest on Alex Cooper’s podcast “Call Her Daddy” for an episode titled “The real Avril Lavigne”.

The legend is linked to a series of articles published by a Brazilian user on his blog starting in 2011 in which he speculated about some big celebrities. About the Canadian singer-songwriter, who four years earlier had achieved greater fame thanks to her most successful single “Girlfriend,” a long article was published entitled “Avril esta morta?”, according to which the voice of “Complicated” would have disappeared in 2003 and would then be replaced by a lookalike named Melissa Vandella. The hoax has been repeated several times, gaining greater resonance especially thanks to the ironic Twitter posts of BuzzFeed journalist Ryan Broderick in 2015, and in the last decade it has occasionally returned to the subject of discussion with each announcement of new music or tour by Avril Lavigne.

Currently busy with the “Greatest Hits Tour”, which last July 9 also stopped in Milan at the I-Days, guest of “Call Her Daddy” Avril returned to the absurd story of her replacement with a lookalike, which even gave rise to a BBC podcast entitled “Who replaced Avril Lavigne?”. “For me it’s just a funny story,” the singer joked about this legend: “On the one hand, everyone says: ‘You’ve remained exactly the same, you haven’t aged a day.’ Other people, however, bring up the conspiracy theory according to which I’m not me.”

Avril Lavigne went on to point out that the hoax she happened to be at the center of isn’t as concerning as others. While she found it to be pretty stupid, the artist said of the story: “It’s not that big of a deal, it could have been worse. I probably got lucky. It’s happened to other artists, I’m not the only one.”

During her chat with Alex Cooper, Lavigne talked about her latest projects, such as her greatest hits collection released last June, her success as a young girl, and her signature style – the latter is captured in the video below.