Singer Olivia Rodrigo raises $10M for abortion; Melinda Gates to double it

Pop star Olivia Rodrigo’s recent music festival raised $10 million for a fund that will help Planned Parenthood and other groups that promote abortion.

Melinda French Gates then pledged another $10 million through Pivotal, a group of organizations she founded. The match brought the total to $20 million.

The money will be split evenly among 10 groups that work on several causes tied to women and girls. Four of those 10 groups provide abortions or advocate for loosening abortion laws.

That means those four pro-abortion groups will get a total of $8 million: $4 million from the festival and $4 million from French Gates’ match.

Those groups include Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the National Institute for Reproductive Health and the National Women’s Law Center.

Planned Parenthood is the biggest abortion provider in America. The other three groups file lawsuits, do public policy work or provide grants to expand legal abortion access.

Rodrigo, a former Disney actress, held the first Daisy Chain Fields festival Aug. 29 at Great Park in Irvine, California. The event had an all-female lineup. The artists performed for free. All net proceeds went to the fund, Pivotal said. 

“Daisy Chain Fields is about what can happen when we come together and use our collective power to support one another,” Rodrigo said. “I’m incredibly grateful to Melinda and Pivotal for believing in this mission and making the impact of our first festival twice as powerful.”

French Gates praised the 23-year-old singer for using her fans to support the pro-abortion organizations.

“Olivia Rodrigo is a force,” French Gates said. “What Daisy Chain Fields sets in motion will last far beyond a single night, by opening up opportunity for women and girls around the world and showing a new generation how much their voices matter. I’m so proud to support Olivia’s vision.”

Pro-life critics said the event excluded one group of girls: unborn ones.

“If Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields Music Festival was really pro-woman like it claims, it would offer support and resources to preborn girls and their mothers, not fund the industry that routinely costs both their lives,” Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins said before the event.

In April, Heartlander News reported that Planned Parenthood and its affiliates performed more than 434,400 abortions in the United States in fiscal year 2024-25. That’s 1,190 abortions per day.

The other six groups receiving festival money are Baby2Baby, Black Mamas Matter Alliance, FreeFrom, Jhpiego, the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health and the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

Rodrigo has pushed abortion for years.

During her 2024 GUTS tour, local abortion organizations set up tables at her shows in the United States.

For instance, the Missouri Abortion Fund gave out free condoms and morning-after pills at a St. Louis show. Rodrigo’s team later stopped the groups from giving out those products because children attended the concerts, The Guardian reported.

Rodrigo’s Fund 4 Good also sent $2.5 million from the tour to liberal advocacy groups, including pro-abortion groups, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Other celebrities have used tours or public events to raise large sums for abortion or LGBT causes.

The Sabrina Carpenter Fund raised more than $1 million during its first year, Billboard reported. That money backed a mix of mental health, animal welfare and LGBT causes.

Additionally, pop singer Chappell Roan started the Midwest Princess Project in 2025.

It has now raised over $800,000 for transgender youth and LGBT groups. The project says it has funded over 60 groups, according to Roan’s website.

Meanwhile, actors Oscar Nuñez and Kate Flannery won $1 million for charity on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” in 2025.

They said Planned Parenthood and Philabundance, a food bank, would receive the money, according to People.

Plus, MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, gave $45 million to the Trevor Project at the end of 2025. It was the largest gift in the LGBT youth group’s history, according to the Associated Press.

The money from Rodrigo’s festival was only part of the benefit for the pro-abortion groups, which also got to promote abortion directly to thousands of young women and girls.

(Image credit: Screenshot / X / Cosmopolitan)