She’s Melissa Now
The final Other Worlds Orbiter screening is coming October 23rd, and it’s a World Premiere! Read about THE MANDELA EFFECT film and get tickets here. As a hat-tip to film’s twisty, conspiracy-laden ideas, the OW programmers are seizing their chance to talk about their favorite conspiracy theories (or truths).
ROBYN:
There are some real clickbait-worthy celebrity gossip stories floating around the internet that are so easy to dismiss in the light of day. That said, once you lay down and your brain casually is like “hey Robyn remember that Twitter thread about how Avril Lavigne died in between the release of her first and second album and was replaced by her body double Melissa Vandella?”, all of a sudden it’s 2am and you’re down the rabbit hole with no hope of escape.
The gist of it goes like this: our girl Avril has always used a body double for meet and greets and to pose for paparazzi in order to draw attention away from herself. She came into her stardom as a young girl and couldn't necessarily handle the constant fame that she got. This explains some of her alleged weird behavior, like not letting fans touch her during photo ops.
In 2004, her music and style drastically changed from pop-punk to pretty pop (don't get me started on the tragedy that is her song Hello Kitty…) Sure, she might have grown up, her face changing because of puberty or even plastic surgery (this is Hollywood guys), and sold out. I guess that makes some tiny bit of sense. But isn't it way more likely that she took her own life and the record company, due to their own greed, then had her body double become her to continue selling albums?
Either way, Avril Lavigne is a real pop icon. Not many get the “they died and were replaced” conspiracy theory treatment- she joined an exclusive list alongside JFK and Elvis.
