TikToker Chris Olsen Opened Up About His Sobriety And What He Wants To Keep Private

TikToker Chris Olsen Opened Up About His Sobriety And What He Wants To Keep Private,"It's very jarring to have your first long-term relationship trend on Twitter when you break up."

TikToker Chris Olsen Opened Up About His Sobriety And What He Wants To Keep Private

If you’ve been on TikTok, there’s a big ol’ chance you’ve come across Chris Olsen before. The 24-year-old has over 10 million followers on the app and has become known for collabing with all sorts of famous faces (hint: Meghan Trainor).

3. Who is the last person you messaged?

My manager. It was like, “Zoom in 15 minutes,” and I was like, Awesome [Laughs]. Maybe a more exciting answer is right before this, I took a photo of a bathroom I was in and sent it to my best friend and said, “I love the vibes in here.” It was a public bathroom, but it was really nice. Beautiful tile. [Author’s note: Said bathroom was in Chicago.]

4. Have you ever been starstruck?

Yes, yes. I frequently am starstruck. I guess the last one I can mention is when my friend Meghan Trainor was doing Jimmy Fallon the same night as Taylor Swift. I was like two feet away from Taylor as she passed down the hallway. When she left, she waved goodbye to everyone — and she did wave goodbye in my direction. So we’re friends, basically.

5. Who’s the funniest celeb you’ve met?

There are obviously funny comedians, who are literally famous for being funny. But [this] may be a predictable answer for me, but I think Meghan is hilarious just being who she is. I think she’s so funny. So, her!

6. What’s one thing about being an influencer that people might not know goes into the job?

One thing is when I was posting on social media as a regular person to my friends, it kind of felt the exact same as when I started posting to a lot of people. I still think about the same things. I hope all of my friends like and comment on it, and you’re still always just hoping that you bring a little bit of joy to people — it’s just at a much larger scale.

I used to think that when you got verified that your app would look different, but it’s all the same. Everything is the exact same. You still just DM your friends funny memes and stuff like that. It’s all very normal, you just have a lot more of a bigger audience.

7. You’ve become a red carpet fixture and I spotted you when I was at the VMAs. What’s the most surprising thing about attending events like the Grammys and the Oscars?

Not to fully pull back the veil, but being there is much less glamorous — as I’m sure you know — than what you would assume on the screen. They do such a beautiful job at making it this beautiful, perfectly well-done event for the cameras — which is obviously the goal because that’s where most people are watching it.

But when you’re there, it can be kind of stressful. You don’t know where to go a lot of the time. When you’re an influencer — at least me, when I’m a lower-tier celebrity — the event is not for me, so I better figure out where I’m supposed to go and what to do from there. Usually at a lot of these events, I’m more stressed out than excited to be there. But I always remind myself in those moments of stress to bring back the gratitude, really take in where I am, and be excited about that.

@chris

IT JUST KEEPS GETTIN CRAZIER!! I love you !! You got this #sober #slay #oscars #cannes

♬ World’s Smallest Violin – AJR

8. You’re over five years sober, congrats — why is it important to you to share your sobriety journey?

When I was getting sober, especially at 19 — except for the people in my treatment center, who were my age, I didn’t know any other young people who had gotten sober at that point. To really stick to it felt like a far-off dream and something that just doesn’t seem to happen. Very few people can be successfully sober, especially before 21 and before they’re even legally able to be sober. But then, when I did do it, it was the best decision I could have ever made.

There were so many people who were in my treatment center, in their 30s, who were like, “If I just got sober when I was your age, I would be so much farther along than I am now.” And so I’ve tried to remember that and show people that you can do it at a young age. I mean, none of what is happening in my life now would be happening if I hadn’t gotten sober. So I think it’s just really important to share, to be able to show people that it’s possible. And also to continue to hold myself accountable to it. There is a reason that I have this platform. Largely it is for fun and to bring joy — but if I don’t use it for some sort of message, then I’m doing a disservice.

BuzzFeed: I feel like influencing and partying are often linked together, so it’s cool to see someone sober.

Yes. Especially being a young person who moved to LA, started influencing, had a good income, it would have been so easy to be like, I should be able to handle this, look at all the good stuff in my life right now. But I’ve always reminded myself that all of the good stuff will go away if I decide to go back in that direction.

9. How have your thoughts on being in a public relationship changed over the years?

It’s pretty common knowledge that at 25, your prefrontal cortex fully develops. There’s such a difference from age 22 to 25. I was 22 when the relationship [with Ian Paget] started. Now, I just know how much more I want to keep to myself. Throughout 22 to 25 — we broke up right when I turned 24 — I think I was just so ready, going with the flow, and sharing things. I hadn’t experienced being in a public relationship or anything like that. So I was like, This is all very fun and exciting.

Now I know that there’s a lot of duality. It can be very fun and exciting, but at the expense of sharing so much of your relationship — and not being able to have very much of it for yourself anymore. Reading a lot of comments about your relationship can be very damaging, especially if they’re negative and you have some insecurity about your relationship.

I’ve learned that moving forward, I’ll want to keep [my relationships] a little private. Because it’s very jarring to have your first long-term relationship trend on Twitter when you break up. Like, that’s not normal! Having your first long-term relationship end is hard enough, and then having it be this news story, which is the biggest press day of your life, was also very hard.

I know, now living a public life, there will be a lot of people who will want to talk about my relationships — if I am to get into one later in life — and that’s totally fine. But I don’t believe I’m going to share it in that way. But also, who knows what the future holds?

BuzzFeed: I remember one of your first videos that went viral…it’s a very different beast to already being an established figure and like sharing.

It’s also different for every couple. I remember after we broke up, I was looking at all these other couples and I was like, Damn, it’s gonna be tough, get ready. But no, there are some couples who really do it well and communicate through it. I just think that we were in very different positions in our life. Yeah, it’s quite the experience.

10. Is anything off limits on your TikTok?

I try to remain open. I think it changes every day. Some days, I’m gonna want to share a crazy thing that happened to me — other days, I’m like, I’m gonna talk about that with my friends. I do this series where I share my therapy sessions. Sometimes they’re too deep to be shared. Sometimes it’s like, No things were happening this week and that’s not something to share for social media. And other times they’re humorous and I love sharing them.

It’s really hit or miss, but I try to never completely cut something off, as of now. Also, I think boundaries are a wonderful, beautiful, healthy thing. And so if boundaries ever come up in the future, I’ll honor them. But for now, I think there are no boundaries that are a never so far.

11. Was there a moment in your friendship with Meghan Trainor where you thought “Oh yeah, we’re going to be friends”?

I pulled up to her house and her entire family came out to the front steps — and just like stood there, waiting for me, smiling. From literally the first time that I left the car and said hello to all of them, I was like, Oh, this is great.

I’ve worked with a lot of celebrities at this point, and sometimes there is that separation, where it’s like, Great, we’re working together, we’re gonna get some videos done, and I have maybe five minutes with you total. With her, it immediately felt like, Oh, we can hang out, we can chill. There’s a lot to talk about. It just it felt so easy so early on, and we had so much in common.

12. Have you ever talked about how forthcoming Meghan is with her personal life?

Yes and no. Sometimes we’d be talking about what we wanted to do on TikTok that week, and she would, like, say these things she wanted to share — which I’m like, “Are you sure?” Like, randomly she has shared multiple videos about having anal fissures. Those are all things where I’m like, “Do you want to post that?” And she’s like, “Yeah, should I not?” I’m like, “No, I mean, go for it!”

Anytime you share something vulnerable, it makes at least one person out there feel less alone — because we’re all going through the same things at all times. So it wasn’t really like a progression of, like, Start sharing things, be more vulnerable. It came very easy to her, which is why her and I being friends came so easily to us.

BuzzFeed: I saw some really interesting press discourse that happened around comments that she shared that were about vaginismus but then were taken out of context. [Author’s note: I am referring to Meghan’s quotes about painful sex that were instead made to sound as if she was talking about the size of her husband’s penis.]

Oh my gosh, yes. I think it speaks to the media a lot of the time. It’s whatever gets the headline, when really she was sharing something that a lot of people in the comments were like, “This is what she was talking about, I’ve struggled with that before, it made me feel less alone.” But of course, the clickbait title is what causes all this discourse.

It’s been a big learning curve for me over the past two years, too — how things can be spun, how you sometimes have to be prepared for something like that to be taken out of context. And you have to be prepared for people to just see the headline and not even read more into the story.

@chris

HOW’D YOU LIKE MY SIGNING??? @headandshoulders #headandshoulderspartner #headandshoulders #haircare #ad

♬ original sound – Chris Olsen

13. How did your Head & Shoulders collaboration come about?

It just felt like a really natural partnership. I struggled with dandruff when I was in middle school into high school. It’s something I’ve gone in and out of throughout my whole life. When we came together to talk about working on something, it felt super organic. I feel like I’m always talking about vulnerable things, or sharing my truth on social media. So talking about how I don’t need to be in denial over dandruff or talking about how it’s not even something to really be ashamed of — Head & Shoulders has been really helpful throughout that whole process. It felt super right to do and it felt like such a great connection to have. We’ve been working together for a while and it’s been super easy every step of the way.

@chris

THE BUBBLE ? @headandshoulders #headandshoulderspartner #ad #dandruff

♬ original sound – Chris Olsen

14. What’s your favorite Head & Shoulders product?

I use their dry scalp care collection most often — they have a two-in-one and they also have a shampoo and a conditioner. I really quickly noticed the difference anytime I have a flare up. Those are the ones I tend to be reaching for the most often, that are usually in the shower with me.

15. Is there anything especially unique about this relaunch of Head & Shoulders that you wanted to highlight?

They changed their formula to a new and improved formula. My mom used it in the past, before this formula change, and she always loved it before. I think the fact that it’s even better only goes to show the work that they continue to put into it. I’ve definitely noticed the difference since using it and I look forward to continuing to use it.