Olivia Rodrigo did something for her crew on the Guts tour that blew rhythm guitarist Daisy Spencer’s mind: she paid for free therapy for her team during the run of shows, as well as when they were off the road. The veteran performer opened up about the loving gesture from her boss on a recent episode of the StageLeft podcast, during which she said she had “fallen off” her therapy regimen lately following a struggle to find the right therapist.
“And then, on the Guts World Tour, Olivia and our tour manager, Marty Hom, made accessible and free therapy for all of the touring personnel,” Spencer said of the sprawling outing that launched in California in Feb. 2024 and kept the “Good 4 U” singer on the road through Oct. of that year, before picking up again in January of this year with a run of international dates that wrapped on July 1 in Manchester, U.K.
“I have never had anything like that. And that reignited the importance of therapy to me because I had just kind of fallen off for so long, and then suddenly I had this free resource of incredible therapists, and I utilized the crap out of that,” said Spencer.
The 31-year-old session and live guitarist said as a result of Rodrigo’s gesture, she went to see a therapist once a week, or every other week, even during the off times when the tour was not on the road and the the crew still had access to the services. “Honestly, that was one of the coolest things that has ever happened on tour,” she said. “Like, seriously, one of the best things you can give to people is accessible free therapy, because it can get kind of expensive.”
The veteran performer who has been touring since she was 17-years-old said the sessions really helped her deal with a lot of her unprocessed trauma from her younger years, which is why taking that time to prioritize mental health was, “doing baby Daisy a good justice of finally getting to hear baby Daisy’s story of what they were going through when I was younger and everything.”
Rodrigo, 22, has been open in the past about seeing a therapist beginning when she was a teenager, something she said has really helped her prioritize her mental health. The singer, whose dad is a family therapist, told CBS Sunday Morning in 2021 that she began seeing a therapist when she was 16 and that it was a “really big, life-changing moment” that helped her learn a lot about herself.
“Sometimes people are like, ‘Oh, you don’t need that, you have so much, your life is so great, what are your problems?’” Rodrigo said at the time. “I think that’s definitely a thing that sometimes older people can do to younger people, too, is kind of trivialize what they’re going through just because they’re like, ‘Eh, they’re fine, they’re just kids, they’ll get through it.’ But it feels so real when you’re in it, and it’s so valid, and just because it’s not an adult problem or you don’t have to pay taxes yet or whatever doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”
Spencer added that the on-the-road therapy has been, “a gift for real. I feel like it is such a gift to be able to look within yourself and have someone else help you bring some stuff out of you that you might otherwise on your own not be able to get there. That’s the gift that therapy has given to me, is that I am able to really flesh out some stuff from my childhood that that needed a voice.”
At press time a spokesperson for Rodrigo had not responded to Billboard‘s request for comment on Spencer’s interview.
Watch Spencer talk about how therapy on the road has helped her — as well as how she creates a “stage persona” for arena crowds, her guitar part on “Vampire” and playing “Hot To Go” with Chappell Roan — below.
