Olivia Rodrigo and Iggy Pop helped induct The White Stripes into the Rock + Roll Hall of Fame.
The Hotel Yorba duo were honoured at Saturday’s (08.11.25) ceremony at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles but as expected, drummer Meg White – who left the music industry after the group split in 2011 – was not in attendance, leaving her ex-husband and bandmate Jack White to give a speech alone.
Iggy inducted the duo into the Hall of Fame, leading the crowd in a chant of Seven Nation Army before hailing The White Stripes as “a 21st century Adam and Eve, who had started a rock and roll band.”
He praised Meg’s drumming skills, noting her support launched “the rocket of racket that was Jack White.”
Jack then came on stage and thanked “Uncle Iggy”, before revealing Meg had made “punctuation and corrections” to his speech, despite her absence from the event.
He said: “I spoke with Meg White the other day; she said she’s very sorry she couldn’t make it tonight, but she’s very grateful for the folks who have supported her throughout all the years, it really means a lot to her tonight…
“She said, ‘Do you remember, Jack? We used to walk around and animals, for some reason, would stare at us. They would stop and stare at us for some reason. Even at the Detroit Zoo, an elephant did the exact same thing one time.’ She just wanted me to tell you that.”
Jack went on to praise a number of other non-musical duos and joked about how he’s been in a number of other bands that “you probably never heard of”.
He said: “There was a duo of songwriters important around the time of the birth of rock ‘n’ roll called Leiber and Stoller, and they wrote a lot of songs that a lot of people probably never heard of, but they also wrote a couple that really connected with folks, like Jailhouse Rock and Stand By Me, and you for sure heard those songs,
“There was once a duo called Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and they were a comic-book-hero writing team who came up with all kinds of heroes you’d never heard of — Slam Bradley and Dr. Occult and so forth — but they also came up with this character that really connected with people: Superman, I’m sure you heard of.
“And there was once a comedy duo called Abbott and Costello that I remember hearing from my father as a child that had thousands of jokes kept on white cards in a file cabinet, jokes and routines that nobody had ever heard before and they never got to perform, but they also developed a joke that for some reason really connected with people, and the routine was called Who’s On First? I know you’ve heard that one.
“I myself have been in a lot of bands that you probably never heard of, but for some reason people especially connected with this one two-piece duo project that I was in called the White Stripes. We don’t know why these things connect with people, but when they do, it’s the most beautiful thing you can have.”
The segment ended with musical performances that saw Olivia team up with Feist for a rendition of the group’s We’re Going to Be Friends, before Twenty One Pilots performed Seven Nation Army.
Other artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday included Outkast, Soundgarden, Cyndi Lauper, Salt-n-Pepa, Joe Cocker and Chubby Checker.