Olivia Rodrigo is currently Down Under for her Guts World Tour, and amid her four-show stop in Melbourne, Olivia carved out some time to meet with a real star. Of course Iām talking about Pesto, the giant baby penguin and greatest specimen of frizzy hair to come out of the Australian city since Kath of Kath & Kim. Heās bigger, taller, and fluffier than his parents, and indeed the largest king penguin chick the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium has ever seen. Of course pop stars should be coming to pay homage to the king (#TheRealKingOfAustralia). And thankfully for us, the meeting was documented with some floof-tacular photos and videos.
āThanks for the visit Olivia! Pesto loved meeting another super fan š§ Good luck with the the rest of your Melbourne shows!ā Sea Life Melbourne replied to Rodrigoās post.
Rodrigo also shared two pictures from her visit on her Instagram Stories. She was dressed for the cool temps inside the aquariumās penguin enclosure.
Pesto is a 10-month-old king penguin and weighs about 46 pounds, according to Sea Life Melbourneās website. He is the largest chick the aquarium has ever seen and is even larger than his parents. His biological father, Blake, is the aquariumās biggest adult and oldest penguin.
The penguin is likely to lose weight when he fledges, or when he develops adult feathers. His keepers predict he will weigh around 33 pounds during the process, reports the Associated Press.
āHeās going to start losing that really adorable baby fluff,ā Sea Life Melbourne education supervisor Jacinta Early told the AP in September. āIt might take him one to two months to really get rid of it. Then heāll be nice and sleek and streamlined.ā
āPesto has reached more than 1.9 billion people across the globe, so he really is a draw card for visitation to Victoria,ā Sea Life Melbourne senior keeper Michaela Smale told 9News in September.
Despite his age, Pestoās keepers didnāt know he was a boy until last month. King penguins are non-sexually dimorphic, so they do not have visible traits to allow keepers to distinguish their sex. They needed a blood sample to discover Pesto is male. The gender reveal video logged over 1.7 million views on TikTok.
Rodrigo began a four-night stand at Melbourneās Rod Laver Arena on Oct. 9. On Oct. 17, she will start another four-night stand, this time at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney. Her Guts World Tour will continue with a group of dates in South America in March.
Geez, so the countdown really is on until Pesto fledges and loses his fluff (meanwhile my fledge appears to be nowhere in sight, sigh). And what happens once Pesto matures, will the world just drop him?! We canāt let this happen! Just because heāll be an adult doesnāt mean he still wonāt be able to look indifferent and/or completely uninterested in photos with humans, as he appears in most of the shots with Olivia. But there is one where it looks like heās talking back to Olivia as she poses with double-handed peace signs. (Iād like to think Pesto was squawking against the resemblance to Richard Nixonās similar infamous gesture, rather than objecting to the notion of peace itself.) Meanwhile, the babe is only 10-months old and already people are talking about him dating another child star, the only other baby animal of equal fame at the moment, Moo Deng. We have John Stewart to thank for suggesting this relationship into the collective consciousness. Iām not opposed to mixed-species dating, itās justā¦ canāt we let them be kids?!
obsessed with olivia rodrigo meeting pesto the penguin this is exactly what famous people should be doing pic.twitter.com/4gqTd6LuRn
— Natasha Roy (@natasharoyy) October 11, 2024
Photos via Instagram/YouTube/Twitter and credit: IPA/INSTARimages, FV/Cover Images
I love this story. We are all Olivia here. haha
When is my fledging going to happen? That’s what I want to know.
Pesto is exactly how my 8 yr old self looked in winter photos wearing a fabulous fuzzy faux fur coat! (Except it was blue.) That was 40ish years ago, amazing how fashion always comes back in style, lol.
If I was rich, that is exactly what I would do with my privilege. So jealous right now. šš
Same. And meet all the pandas.
And Moo Deng omg I loved Bowen Yang getting hosed in the face. He nailed Moo’s essence lol.
He looks like a giant disgruntled kiwi, I love him very much. I hope that he remains a giant penguin as he grows up.