The Untold Truth Of Dua Lipa
Whether or not you're familiar with singer-songwriter Dua Lipa, you should probably know that she's the "queen of the kiss-off," according to The New York Times, an artist who "prefers music for 'dance-crying,' songs that traverse darker emotional terrain." However, the "New Rules" hitmaker has also dabbled in "tracks about the thrill of a happy relationship." Frankly, when it comes to the subject matter of her songs, Lipa's main goal is staying true to herself, telling the publication in April 2020, "It's really the way I express myself, and the way that I would talk with my friends, and the way that I am."
Something the London-born musician had to learn to accept, though, was her newfound stardom, which sunk in during a studio session with Coldplay's Chris Martin. "I had this realization, 'This is the guy you hear on the radio,'" she previously told NME. "... And at that point, I was like, 'Oh my God. What's happening to me? This is just crazy.'" Granted, the fact that Lipa has millions of fans, billions (yes, billions) of views on YouTube, and has taken home her fair share of industry honors might have also given her a clue to the fact that she's a genuine music industry celebrity.
But all that said, here are a few intriguing facts about Dua Lipa that will surely surprise you.
Dua Lipa's family members are also relatively popular
Dua Lipa may be a star, but she's not the only one in her family who exists in the public eye. Dua's mom, Anesa Lipa, has well over a hundred thousand followers on Instagram and often shares photos of her famous daughter, as well as Dua's younger sister, Rina, and younger brother, Gjin. Anesa also uses her influence to promote both the Sunny Hill Festival and Sunny Hill Foundation, which are initiatives based in Dua's parents' home country of Kosovo.
Dua even has a Sunny Hill tattoo, which is apparently her favorite ink. She explained to Refinery29 in 2019, "It's the neighborhood my parents grew up in Kosova ... It holds a special meaning for me."
The family also includes Dua's dad, Dukagjin Lipa, who — on top of being the founder and CEO of REPUBLIKA Communications Agency, the director of the Sunny Hill Festival, and the president of the Sunny Hill Foundation, per his IG bio – was also in an Albanian rock band, according to NME. Dukagjin, who is obviously still very much in love with his wife, was "one of [Dua's] main influences" because she "grew up listening to his music." Nowadays, she refers to him as her BFF while posting photos of the duo when she was younger, as well as on the red carpet — where he sometimes (adorably) escorts her to events.
The Grammy-winner was told that she couldn't sing when she was young
Dua Lipa's voice is a "vocal conundrum," Diva Devotee explains. A "steely, mesmerizing sound that is husky and deep," it's apparently not a style that everyone is into. In fact, NME notes that when Lipa was just 11 years old, she wanted to join the choir at school. Unfortunately for the future star, a teacher told her that "she couldn't sing." Um...? Although Lipa may not yet have developed the signature vocal skills that she's known for these days, even the next year, she was knocking out Alicia Keys' hit "No One" in front of a crowd.
Thankfully, Lipa didn't let the discouragement prevent her from pursuing her goals, which is why she went on to become the most streamed female artist on Spotify UK in 2017 (with "New Rules" being streamed 464 million times in just that one year and "Scared to Be Lonely" racking up 453 million streams), per BBC News. She was also one of the "big winners" at the Brit Awards in 2019, according to Variety, not to mention the fact that she's won two Grammy Awards as of 2020, including one for the best new artist of 2018.
We wonder if that teacher would let Lipa join the choir these days.
Dua Lipa went to the same school as Amy Winehouse, Rita Ora, and other future stars
Dua Lipa's singing style may be "raw and unfiltered," as The Cut puts it, however, that doesn't mean that she's untrained. In fact, she once studied at the Sylvia Young Theatre School in Marylebone, London, which is also where stars like Rita Ora ("herself an immigrant from Kosovo," according to NME) and the late Amy Winehouse honed their performing skills. Other alumni include Spice Girls' Emma Bunton and actor Nicholas Hoult.
The Great star later recalled his time at the school, telling the Independent in 2006 that students have "three days of academic work and two days of vocational work a week: singing, dancing and acting." Hoult added that the schedule "was good because the academic lessons were so focused, you got on with it — and then there were the fun days, doing what you really wanted to do."
As for Lipa's time as a student, she explained, per NME, "Music there was so different. It just didn't compare to the pop stars I'd see on TV, like Britney Spears and Destiny's Child." While the singer was initially a part-time student at the performing arts school, only attending on Saturdays, she eventually convinced her parents to allow her to attend full time. However, this decision meant that the young performer had to make a major move when she was still just a teenager.
Dua Lipa left home and moved to a different country when she was just 15
Dua Lipa's parents are Albanian and left Kosovo for London in the '90s, which is where the star was born. However, when she was 11, they returned to Kosovo. By 15, the singer was eager to pursue her career and managed to get her parents to allow her to head back to England. "There was an older girl from Kosovo moving to London at the same time and my parents knew her parents, so they said I could live with her. Like a kind of guardian," Lipa told NME in 2017.
While the girls did live together when they got to England, Lipa ended up having to fend for herself. "The cooking and the cleaning ... that was tough," she admitted with what NME referred to as a "self-deprecating laugh." The star explained that the "realization" that "no one was going to clean up after" her was not thrilling. Lipa even recalled her mom coming for a visit and being unimpressed with the amount of unwashed laundry that her daughter had stashed away in her wardrobe.
However, Lipa says that independence and the resulting responsibility forced her to "grow up" and helped her "mature." She noted, "[It] made me who I am today. I'm really grateful for it, but I do remember it being a struggle."
Dua Lipa's early days included YouTube covers and an X Factor commercial
While Dua Lipa was still trying to attract the attention of influential people in the music industry and establish herself as a professional (and potential star), she tried using various methods to get her music out into the world. That's why she "posted cover songs on SoundCloud and YouTube," according to The New York Times. Paper also points out that Lipa is someone who's familiar with being an unknown artist doing covers of others' music while also being a star who now has strangers doing covers of her own tunes. She told the outlet in 2017, "That was me at some point. I know exactly what it's like to go and turn that camera on and just do it."
Apparently, Lipa used the internet to "[build] her audience by posting her own versions of songs by Destiny's Child or Nelly Furtado," as well as other successful artists in the biz. But she didn't stop there. The NYT notes that she also hustled offline and "dropped off demo CDs at radio stations" while "[picking] up gigs doing vocals for advertisements." That's right, you might have heard Lipa's voice in an ad. In fact, "one such assignment, for an X Factor commercial, connected her with a producer who proposed a publishing deal." When it comes to Lipa, it appears as if paying her dues definitely paid off.
This music scene celeb has connections to the modeling world
Before Dua Lipa became a star in the music scene, she put her looks to good use as a model. She told Harper's Bazaar in 2017, "I got approached to do modeling when I was really young ... but I was never the right size, I was never cut out to be a model, and I never really got any real jobs." She was told that if she lost weight, she'd get booked, which "put [her] in a really bad mindset."
"The reason why I thought modeling was a good idea was because I thought I could make loads of friends that could help me in music," Lipa explained. "Obviously, that wasn't the case." Despite that fact that Lipa wasn't keen on modeling, she still says that she's "grateful" that she did it, because not only is it "part of [the] journey to where [she] is now," but, she added, "It also showed me a lot of what I wanted and what made me happy, and it wasn't that at all."
Granted, there is something related to modeling that makes her happy: Her boyfriend, model Anwar Hadid, the brother of fellow models Gigi and Bella Hadid, and the son of former model Yolanda Hadid. Just take a peek at Lipa's Instagram account and you'll see pictures of herself and Anwar being an adorable and adoring couple. And his IG posts are just as full of their love, which is super sweet.
'Assaulting' a police officer with ... bubbles?!
Dua Lipa may have been a career-minded person even when she was young, but that doesn't mean that she didn't know how to chill out. In fact, that's weirdly how she got herself in trouble with the law.
When she was 15, the singer and her friends were almost arrested when they made a bubble bath. How the heck did that lead to legal issues? Well, when they found themselves with too many bubbles, they tossed the extra suds off of a balcony and out the window. While that might not have been the best idea, it also doesn't sound terribly illegal, amirite? However, the soapy situation then took a turn for the worse when the bubbles landed on a cop down below and, as a result, Lipa was told she might be arrested for "assaulting" a police officer.
"It came to the point where he was like, 'We're gonna take you down to Scotland Yard,'" the star recalled in 2016 while chatting with Inside The Story. "I was in tears by that point. I was like, 'I can't go to jail. I'm too little.' He was like: 'How old are you? ... 15? Okay, we'll just send you a warning in the post.'" Luckily for Lipa, the warning never showed up and her parents weren't notified about the slippery incident.
Dua Lipa has (had?) an extra body part
Do you have any unexpected, extraordinary, or, er, "weird body parts," as Us Weekly might say? If so, then you're just like stars such as 13 Going on 30 actress Jennifer Garner, who has "an overlapping pinky toe," and "Who'd Have Known" singer Lily Allen, who has a third nipple. Then there's "We R Who We R" crooner Kesha, who claims she was born with "a tiny tail, about a quarter of an inch, then they chopped it off and stole my tail." Dua Lipa is another star who has (or had?) a little something extra when it comes to her physical form.
According to Healthline, most human adults have 32 teeth — eight incisors (your front teeth) and four canines or cuspids (the pointy, vampire-like ones), as well as eight premolars and 12 molars (the chompers and grinders in the back). Lipa, however, has 33. In March 2018, she took to Instagram to post a (now-deleted) X-ray of her mouth when she had to have her wisdom teeth removed. She wrote (via MTV News), "Your [girl's] been blessed with 33 teeth. I've always been an overachiever."
The X-ray can still be seen on 95-106 Capital FM and, indeed, behind Lipa's wisdom tooth appears to be an extra tooth tucked up in her gums. Unexpectedly, some of the singer's fans felt a bond with her due to the dental situation, with one Twitter follower writing, "Queen! We're almost sisters ahah, I've been blessed with 34!"
The style icon's fashion choices have 'divided' her fans
Dua Lipa isn't afraid to take chances when it comes to her style, which is why her fashion choices often earn her a lot of attention — there's even an Instagram account dedicated to her outfits that has over 61,000 followers. "In addition to her award-winning music, the songstress has long been impressing us with her sartorial wild streak, too," Who What Wear noted. "From mesh and thigh-skimming sequins to elegant ballgowns and sharp suiting," there's apparently "no trend" that the singer "can't turn her hand to."
"It's not necessarily the putting together of the image that is important, but being able to represent yourself and who you are as an artist that is important to musicians," Lipa explained to Vogue Australia in 2018. "When I get involved in the fashion world, it's another outlet for my creativity, another extension of my music, and who I am as an artist." She added that because "fashion is an extension of what [she'd] like to say" and who she is, she's been aware of what she's wanted to wear "from the very beginning."
However, not everyone is into the star's fashion sense. In fact, it's actually "divided" her fans at times, the Evening Standard noted, such as the dress she wore to the 2019 Brit Awards (pictured, above), which one fan felt made her look "Hotter than hell," while another thought it was simply "awkward." Either way, you do you, Dua!
Is Dua Lipa a diva?
Does Dua Lipa seem approachable to you or does she seem like a snobby celebrity? Apparently, the latter may be true if the way she allegedly acted at the 2019 Brit Awards is any indication. While the star dominated the nominations and won the best British single honor for "One Kiss," her collaboration with Calvin Harris, that wasn't all that people were talking about after the event. According to the Daily Mail, the singer was "accused of 'diva-like' behavior." Hm.
The Sun explains that Lipa was reportedly "furious after being given a dressing room close to other guests who were eager to talk to her." A source also noted that "Dua's dressing room was right next to the backstage beauty spa which meant plenty of people were heading past to get pampered before the show." However, the singer "made it clear she didn't want to be there after other guests kept heading in to say hi and wish her good luck." Due to the disruptions, Lipa allegedly "slammed the door closed and ripped her name off it so nobody would realize she was there." Granted, Lipa may have simply wanted a little quiet time, however, in comparison, Harris "made his dressing room a free-for-all" and was letting anyone "in to help him celebrate with a magnum of champagne."
However, Lipa didn't seem to care about the supposed situation, as Metro pointed out that following the ceremony, she "was too busy getting down with her pals at the Brits after-party."
Dua Lipa is doing pretty darn well for herself money-wise
Dua Lipa has certainly seen her hard work pay off. While the singer "only began to earn mainstream success in 2017," StyleCaster notes that she "quickly emerged as a money-making machine thanks in part to her radio-ready hits and widespread streaming success." Granted, she's also leveraged her fame to take advantage of other profitable opportunities.
The Sun points out that Lipa has landed what are surely lucrative deals with major brands like Jaguar, Adidas, Saint Laurent, and Pepe Jeans. Beyond that, in May 2020, the same media outlet reported that Lipa had filed papers to trademark her name around the world, which would cover "hundreds of items including clothes and cosmetics, as well as computer games, books, jewelry, and even kitchen utensils." An insider explained that Lipa "knows she is in high demand right now and can make a fortune."
If that makes it sound like the singer is one busy woman, she definitely is — and that's exactly how she wants it. In 2018, Lipa talked to The Guardian about her work ethic, saying, "It's a 24-hour job. And at this point, I want to be able to say yes to everything." For the star, that means "every tour, every show, every shoot, every whatever." Those tours, shows, shoots, and "whatever" is why she now has $16 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. And if Lipa's future financial aims go forward as planned, then that number could seriously spike sometime soon.