Dua Lipa made light of the situation where her dancing at the BRIT Awards in 2018 became a meme during the opening monologue as the host of Saturday Night Live.
Lipa performed ‘New Rules’ at that year’s ceremony in a performance many deemed to be lacklustre. A video posted of the performance went on to spawn a comment, which is now a viral meme: “I love her lack of energy, go girl give us nothing!”
Six years on, Lipa joked about the perceptions people have of her in the monologue. On the subject of the meme, she said: “I didn’t give you nothing. I gave you the greatest meme of all time.”
She continued: “Now I’m here, I’m hosting, I’m performing, I’m making the wigs, I’m dealing Adderall to the writers, I’m doing it all. So tonight, I promise you I’m going to give you EVERYTHING!”
She also spoke about the jokes made about her seeming to always be in a sunny location. “There’s people online who say ‘Dua Lipa’s always on vacation’ which is totally wrong because I’m British and so we call it a holiday.”
Dua Lipa jokes about “Dula Peep,” the “go girl give us nothing” meme and more in SNL monologue. pic.twitter.com/RyrMjZUMEa
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) May 5, 2024
Lipa also performed songs from her new album ‘Radical Optimism’ on the show – check out her performances of ‘Illusion’ and ‘Happy For You’ below:
Speaking to The Guardian, Lipa called the moment “hurtful” and “humiliating”: “When people took that snippet of me dancing online and just turned it into a meme, and then when I won the best new artist Grammy and people were like, ‘She’s not deserving of it, she’s got no stage presence, she’s not going to stick around.’ Those things were hurtful. It was humiliating.”
She added that she had to “take myself off Twitter”, saying she was upset as “people were picking everything apart that I’d been working on, and I had to learn all that in front of everyone.”
“In the public eye, I was figuring out who I was as an artist, as a performer,” she continued. “All that was happening while I was 22, 23 years old and still growing up. You have to build tough skin. You have to be resilient.”
Lipa also told The Guardian that the humiliation over the meme lasted “until I finished writing ‘Future Nostalgia’ and did my first performance of ‘Don’t Start Now’, at the MTV Europe Music awards,” estimating it was “two years” total.
“It never was like I couldn’t get out of bed because of what I thought people thought of me,” she added. “I didn’t care to that degree. But that’s when it was most heightened for me.”
She concluded by adding she got “a real kick” out of the positive audience reaction once ‘Don’t Start Now’ came out: “It was November 2019 when ‘Don’t Start Now’ came out, and it dawned on me that I’m finally going to get up and dance in front of people after what they have thought about me for so long. And I went back, did that performance, and everyone was like, ‘Oh, we were wrong.’ I got a real kick out of that.”
Lipa recently released her third studio album ‘Radical Optimism’, which NME gave three stars: “‘Radical Optimism’ offers little else to latch on.
“Later this summer, she’ll headline Glastonbury for the first time and also top the bill at a string of European festivals. It’s the kind of place where ‘Radical Optimism’ might thrive: the album’s beachy vibes feel suited to a festival field’s carefree disposition. You just wish there was a little more to these songs.”
Lipa has said she “manifested” she would headline the iconic festival by “album three”, telling Zane Lowe: “I feel like I’m going to get teary talking about it. Glastonbury is just the festival, that one, I’ve loved going just as a fan. And to go up on that stage and perform…”
“I felt that by album three, I’d be deserving of maybe headlining or something,” she continued. “It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud […] It’s all very surreal. Yeah, it’s just like… it’s my biggest dream. It’s headlining Glastonbury! On the Friday night! It’s real! When I’m in the studio and I’m writing, the first thought that comes into my mind is, ‘What is this going to sound like at Glastonbury?’”
In other news, Lipa has said she feels “very close to” people suffering from war, injustices and inequality.