Ever since Bette Davis and Joan Crawford sparred on the set of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, celebrity feuds have been a consistent source of tabloid fodder. When Joan Rivers accepted a late-night hosting position on a competing network, Johnny Carson never forgave her. Fans watched enraptured as Jordyn Woods’ betrayal of Khloé Kardashian played out on the most recent season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. And just last month, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry finally buried the hatchet over homemade cookies.
Luckily, for the celebrity gossip-obsessed, there is a new pop star rivalry to follow. It all began at the end of June when Iggy Azalea announced that her new album, In My Defense, would drop July 19 after a five-year musical dry spell. (The rapper has not released an album since her 2014 debut, The New Classic.)
Azalea, however, is facing an unexpected obstacle to her comeback. Peppa Pig, the beloved children’s cartoon character, is dropping an album of her own on the same day. The project is aptly titled My First Album. Peppa has released one single, a bona fide banger called “Bing Bong Zoo,” but the teaser video posted on Twitter previews some of the other 15 songs.
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I, for one, immediately started bobbing my head to the refrain of British children singing “Peppa, peppa party” over and over again—something that cannot be said for Azalea’s first two singles off of her new album, “Sally Walker” and “Started.” We might just have another “Baby Shark” on our hands: an undeniably catchy, incessantly annoying earworm that will haunt the nightmares of parents around the world.
On Tuesday morning, Azalea retweeted the My First Album announcement and jokingly commented, “It’s over for me now.” The official Peppa Pig account clapped back with a GIF of the pig posing in front of a mirror, wearing a crown and a fuchsia frock. The shady caption borrows lyrics from Azalea’s first hit song, “Fancy:” “Peppa’s so fancy, you already know.”
For those without young children or a proclivity for meme culture, Peppa Pig is a British cartoon series about the titular pig and her anthropomorphic pals. Peppa talks like any other little girl, save for the occasional snort, and does normal-kid activities like reading, going to school, and hanging out with her family. In a recent Wimbledon special, she plays tennis with her friends. Each episode clocks in at about five minutes. With this latest venture, it appears that she is finally ready to add “pop star” to her résumé.
Peppa Pig is no stranger to internet fame. In 2018, she got the meme treatment when a clip from the show went viral. In the one-minute video, Peppa is upset that all of her friends can whistle, but she can’t. She calls up Suzy Sheep to trash-talk their whistling friends, only for Suzy to whistle perfectly on her first try. Wordlessly, Peppa hangs up the landline with a dramatic jab of her pointer finger. People on Twitter used the screengrab of pissed Peppa Pig hanging up the phone to make fun of telemarketers and other unwanted callers.
The cartoon even fueled something called the #PeppaEffect on Twitter when, earlier this year, American parents began noticing that their kids had adopted British accents or phrases from watching too much Peppa Pig. One Twitter user wrote, “My 5-year-old nephew only goes on holiday, NOT vacation. He’s California born-and-bred.”
It sounds like Iggy Azalea might actually have something to worry about. Given the posh farm animal’s influencer status among the preschool set, Peppa Pig’s My First Album might be the sleeper hit of the summer.
Azalea is willing to make amends with her unlikely rival under one condition: she agrees to a collaboration. Her latest reply to Peppa Pig’s shade reads, “Collab with me now or you’ll end up a breakfast special peppa.” Honestly, a Piggy Azalea collab might be what it takes for me to finally enjoy a song by the Aussie rapper. The ball’s in your court, Peppa.
