Olivia Rodrigo joins Billy Joel for ‘Deja Vu,’ ‘Uptown Girl’ at Madison Square Garden

NEW YORK — You bet that she knows Billy Joel.

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Olivia Rodrigo was a surprise guest at Joel’s sold-out show at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, Rolling Stone reported.

The singers performed Rodrigo’s “Deja Vu,” which has a lyric that references Joel and his 1983 hit, “Uptown Girl,” Variety reported. Joel then segued into “Uptown Girl,” a song that was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 almost 20 years before Rodrigo was born.

The MSG crowd did not know about Rodrigo’s appearance until Joel, 73, introduced her midway through his 82nd consecutive sellout at the venerable entertainment venue. As his band began to play the intro to “Deja Vu,” Joel told the crowd he was bringing out a young musician.

“She’s a triple Grammy winner. She won the Billboard 2022 Woman of the Year award. She’s got the American Music Award. She’s got all kinds of awards. She’s very talented,” Joel said. “I like her music, and so do my kids. She’s very talented. Please say hello to Olivia Rodrigo.”

Joel broke into a wide smile when Rodrigo, 19, sang “I’ll bet that she knows Billy Joel/’Cause you played her ‘Uptown Girl,’” and pointed toward him, Rolling Stone reported.

After Rodrigo finished, Joel grabbed a microphone, hugged the singer and said they were going to do “a song that was referred to in the last song.”

Rodrigo and Joel then traded verses in an uptempo version of “Uptown Girl.”

The surprise duet will increase Joel’s standing with younger audiences that turned his 1978 song “Zanzibar” into a TikTok dance craze over the past year, Rolling Stone reported.

“I don’t even know what TikTok is,” Joel told an audience last year. “But this is a thing.”

Joel has sold more than 1.5 million tickets and grossed more than $181 million from his MSG residency that began in 2014, Variety reported. previous surprise guests have included Bruce Springsteen, John Fogerty, Paul Simon, Miley Cyrus and John Mellencamp.

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