Pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo is paving the way for mental health awareness after her guitarist revealed that the singer paid for therapy for the entire crew on tour.
The 22-year-old’s ‘Guts World Tour’ ran from February 2024 up until the final show in Manchester at the start of July 2025. In total, she performed 102 shows across several continents: a tall order for both her and her crew. But Rodrigo’s guitarist Daisy Spencer has revealed that their mental health was a huge priority to the singer.
Speaking to The Stage Left podcast, she revealed that professional therapy was on offer throughout the tour for all band and crew members. She said: “Olivia and our tour manager, Marty Hom, made accessible and free therapy for all of the touring personnel.”
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She added: “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.”
The ‘Vampire’ singer is not the only star advocating for mental health, either. Lewis Capaldi recently teamed up with the online therapy platform BetterHelp to give his fans 734,000 hours of free online therapy – a reference to the 734 days the artist took to focus on his mental health after he experienced difficulties during a 2023 Glastonbury Festival set.
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Positivity and success coach Casey Paul believes celebrities being vocal about mental health can have a “massive” impact. She says: “When leaders speak openly about mental health, it gives everyone else permission to do the same and breaks the stigma that can often be attached to it. Instead of mental health being seen as a private issue, or a weakness it becomes part of normal culture – something human, and worth supporting.”
Of course, while touring can be a particularly stressful environment, therapy can be beneficial in a wide range of workplaces. Lauren Baird is a psychotherapist at Inner Glow Therapy who has witnessed many people coming in with burnout. She reveals: “So many people come to therapy struggling with their mental health, but terrified to say anything at work, scared they’ll be seen as weak, unprofessional, or just not good enough.
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“That kind of stigma has been around for years, especially when it comes to things like anxiety, depression or burnout. You’d never question someone taking time off for a physical illness, but when it comes to emotional health, there’s still this fear it’ll be judged as a character flaw.”
However, she says that she has been seeing a definite shift in attitudes. She says: “More workplaces are starting to include therapy as part of their wellbeing offering — and culturally, we’re beginning to understand that emotional regulation and resilience are just as important as physical health.”
Plus, she points out that it’s also beneficial for the employer too. She says: “We also know from research that emotionally supportive workplaces have more productive teams and fewer cases of long-term sickness.”
According to the Mental Health Foundation, poor mental wellbeing costs British employers an estimated £42 billion to £45 billion per year, through working while sick, sickness absence and staff turnover. Meanwhile, in 2022 and 2023 were an estimated 875,000 workers suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety.
