Avril Lavigne showed up on the music scene back in 2002 with a bang. At the time, we were used to bubblegum pop singers like Britney Spears, so Lavigne’s pop-punk music and personality were a breath of fresh air.
Of course, Sk8r Boi became an instant classic, which she followed up with I’m With You, My Happy Ending, Girlfriend, and Keep Holding On.
She dominated the charts and the tabloids for years, until she began to drop off, then disappeared from the public eye all together.
Read on to see everything that went down in Lavigne’s long – and successful – career.
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Why did Avril Lavigne quit?
Avril Lavigne stepped away from the spotlight for two years after her Lyme diagnosis. She later said that the disease made her feel trapped in her own body, and she was barely able to leave bed for two years.
“I had accepted that I was dying,” Lavigne told Billboard in 2018. “And I felt in that moment like I was underwater and drowning, and I was trying to come up to gasp for air. And literally under my breath, I was like, ‘God, help me keep my head above the water.’ “
Between her diagnosis in 2014 and her comeback in 2019, Lavigne took a forced hiatus from the music industry. She didn’t totally rest, though, but used that time to work on new music.
“The silver lining of it is that I’ve really had the time to be able to just be present, instead of being, like, a machine: studio, tour, studio, tour,” she said in the same interview. “This is the first break I’ve ever taken since I was 15.”
In 2019, she released her comeback album, Head Above Water.
When did Avril Lavigne have Lyme disease?
The singer first started noticing symptoms in 2014: she was constantly fatigued but figured it was due to her busy career.
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“I’m achy, I’m fatigued, I cannot get the f— out of bed — what the f— is wrong with me?” Lavigne said she asked doctors.
Before doctors could come up with a diagnosis, a friend of Lavigne’s suggested she may have Lyme disease, and urged her to reach out to Yolanda Hadid.
Hadid also suffers from Lyme disease, and published a book about her struggle with it in 2017.
The singer began treatment for her disease, but it was a slow road to recovery. “There were definitely times I couldn’t shower for a full week because I could barely stand,” she told PEOPLE. “It felt like having all your life sucked out of you.”
The singer decided there needs to be more education about the dangers of Lyme disease, so she started the Avril Lavigne Foundation, which supports individuals with Lyme Disease, serious illness or disabilities.
Is Avril Lavigne still making music?
The Canadian singer is still very much making music – in 2022, she released her seventh studio album Love Sux. The album is very punk-inspired, returning to her roots, and features collaborations with Travis Barker and Machine Gun Kelly.
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Up next, she’s planning to work on a film adaptation of Sk8r Boi, the song which started her whole career. “I can’t wait to learn this process of making a movie,” she told The Guardian in 2022, revealing that she’s hired a director for the project.
The Avril Lavigne death conspiracy theory
There is a very pervasive internet conspiracy theory that Lavigne actually died early in her career, and was replaced by a body double named Melissa.
The theory claims that soon after the release of Sk8r Boi in 2002, Lavigne was struggling to live a life in the spotlight, so she hired a lookalike – Melissa – to take her place at public events.
At some point shortly after, the real Lavigne supposedly died, so her record label just replaced her with Melissa and pretended nothing happened.
Fans of the theory have dug up evidence, from lyrics to red carpet photos, which prove that Melissa indeed has been living as Lavigne for nearly two decades.
The theory can be traced back to a Brazilian fan blog in 2011, though others say the same rumour has perpetuated since 2005.
The singer has addressed the theory multiple times over her career. In 2018, she told Kylie and Jackie O that it was “so weird”. In 2019, she called it a “dumb internet rumour”, saying that she was “flabbergasted that people bought into it”.
It turns out that it was all a random hoax started by a Brazilian fan, who wanted to prove just how easy it was to spread misinformation.
Did Avril Lavigne break off her engagement?
Avril Lavigne was engaged to Mod Sun – who featured on her 2022 album – for ten months before they broke off their engagement.
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A rep for Mod Sun said that he was blindsided when Lavigne called it quits: “They were together and engaged as of three days ago when Mod left for tour so if anything has changed that’s news to him.”
Lavigne and Mod Sun – whose real name is Derek Smith – became engaged in Paris in April 2022 after first being linked in February 2021.
Just a few days before their split was confirmed, he praised Lavigne in an interview with E! News.
“I have found such a partner in this world to go through the chaos that life gives you,” he told the outlet. “I have found that person. I’m with a real grown woman who has gone through it all 10 times over and she makes me a better person.”
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Avril Lavigne’s relationship history
Lavigne has been married twice – to Chad Kroeger and Deryck Whibley.
She started dating musician Whibley in 2004 when she was 19, and they married two years later. After three years of marriage, they filed for divorce.
At the time, a source told PEOPLE that Lavigne “married too young and she finally realised that. Avril realised she needs her own life and needs to explore things without him.”
In April 2010, Lavigne was seen hanging out with reality star Brody Jenner at a Vegas nightclub. Though they kept things private, the couple dated for nearly two years, calling it quits in 2012.
A few months later, Lavigne began dating Nickelback rocker Chad Kroeger, after meeting when they collaborated on a new song. Within six months of dating, they were engaged, and tied the knot in 2013.
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In 2015, they split after two years of marriage. They did remain friends, however, recording a song together in 2016 and performing on stage together in 2017.
Between 2018 and 2019, Lavigne was dating Phillip Sarofim, the son of an Egyptian-American billionaire. E! News reported that the couple met “through friends at a dinner party and hit it off”. They ultimately split in late 2019.
In January 2021, Lavigne first met Mod Sun when they collaborated on a song together. “I knew we had a very strong unstoppable connection from the first week of writing and working together in the studio. Immediately,” Lavigne told PEOPLE.
He proposed to her in early 2022, but called off the relationship less than a year later.
One day before Mod Sun and Lavigne’s split was made public, she was seen having dinner with rapper Tyga in Los Angeles. A few weeks later, they were seen kissing in Paris and attending parties together, with multiple sources reporting they were a couple.
What is Avril Lavigne’s net worth?
Avril Lavigne’s net worth is around AUD $92 million, making her one of the most financially successful Canadian singers.
Alongside her own music, Lavigne has also written hits for other singers, including Kelly Clarkson‘s Breakaway.
