Happy Birthday

Avril Lavigne, the Canadian skater girl, turns 40

Avril Lavigne performing at the Wiener Stadthalle in spring 2023.

(Bild: Andreas Graf)

There was a lot going on in the women's music year 2002: Norah Jones crooned cuddly jazz on "Come Away With Me", Shania Twain delivered self-confident country pop with "Up!", Christina Aguilera moved away from teen pop with the edgier "Stripped". But there was also this teenager from Canada: Avril Lavigne. More than 22 years have passed since her debut. Today, on September 27, Lavigne celebrates her 40th birthday.

The girl with the long straight hair and oversized dresses was just 17 years old. "Let Go" was the name of her album, and with "Complicated", "Sk8er Boi" and "I'm With You" it delivered three hits that millions of fans can still hum along to today. Her enduring success is partly due to the immensely catchy quality of the melodies, but also because the singer stood out.

One of us
Staged as a skater with baggy trousers, a tie and a self-confident attitude, the songs she co-wrote sang about falling in love, being authentic and the constant search for someone she would like to come home to. What's more: Born in 1984, the Canadian may have had the image for fans of being the cool girlfriend next door, but from the very beginning the press always took a liking to the gaudy headlines about her private life.

For example, there was her marriage to Deryck Whibley, singer of Sum 41, a band with a somewhat more credible punk attitude. Whibley had to look at "April sucks" signs at his concerts and listen to the accusation that his partner stood for the sell-out of this style of music. Nevertheless, the two married in 2006, when Whibley was 26 years old and Lavigne was 21. He still felt like a teenager from a Toronto suburb at the time, Whibley told GQ magazine last year. "But the Canadian press covered the news like a royal wedding." The two fled to Los Angeles, but the music stars' demanding calendars made it difficult to spend time together - they divorced after four years.

Second marriage in the sand
This was followed by a two-year relationship with one of Kim Kardashian's stepbrothers and finally a second marriage to an even more famous fellow musician: Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger. In the summer of 2013, the then 38-year-old married the singer, who was ten years his junior, after they had written music together the year before. But this marriage didn't last either; two years later, Lavigne announced their separation via Instagram: "We are still best friends and will remain that way forever." In fact, the two remain connected through songwriting and producing together.

In 2014, Lavigne was diagnosed with Lyme disease, an infectious disease that can damage the nervous system and joints, among other things. During this phase, she was constantly tired and sometimes too weak to shower, Lavigne later told People magazine. "I thought I was dying. It felt like all my life was being sucked out of me," she said. It was only after five years that she managed to return to the public eye with the comeback album "Head Above Water".

Vision became reality
Today, Lavigne can look back on seven studio albums and a recently completed "Greatest Hits" tour. She has been responsible for three perfumes, launched her own fashion label and was honored with a star on Hollywood's Walk Of Fame. For the last concert of her tour, Lavigne posted a photo on Instagram in front of thousands of fans, combined with a text that shows how much she has overcome the lethargy of the illness. "I've been on the road for so long in my life," it reads, "but at the end of every tour I realize how special what we do is, how many people it takes to make my vision a reality - and how much I look forward to the next one."