Dua Lipa speaks out about her ‘humiliating’ experience after viral dance meme

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Dua Lipa has opened up about the “humiliating” experience of being turned into a meme for her dancing on social media.

A clip of the singer performing at one of her concerts in 2017 became a viral video, with fans comparing her moves to a pencil in a “pencil sharpener”.

The 28-year-old singer, who has just released her third studio album Radical optimismdescribed the profound impact the jokes had on her in a new interview with The Guardian.

“When people took that clip of me line dancing and just turned it into a meme, and then when I won the Grammy for Best New Artist and people were like, ‘She doesn’t deserve it , she has no stage presence, she’s not going to do it.’ stick around.’ These things were hurtful. It was humiliating. I had to remove myself from Twitter,” she said.

The Albanian-British artist said the memes sparked increased attention as audiences took notice of her talent while she was “still growing” in her early 20s.

“The thing that made me happiest – performing and writing songs – also made me very upset because people were tearing down everything I had worked on, and I had to learn all of that in front of everyone.

“In the public eye, I was discovering who I was as an artist, as a performer. All of this happened when I was 22, 23 and still growing up. You have to build tough skin. You have to be resilient. »

She shared that the “humiliation” lasted “two years,” until she finished writing her 2020 album. Nostalgia for the future and completed her debut performance of “Don’t Start Now” at the MTV Europe Music Awards.

“I never felt like I couldn’t get out of bed because of what I thought people thought of me. I didn’t care that much. But that’s when it was the most intense for me,” she added.

However, the star added that she felt vindicated after being able to prove people wrong following her performance.

“It was November 2019 when ‘Don’t Start Now’ came out, and I realized that I was finally going to get up and dance in front of people after what they thought of me for so long,” she declared. .

“And I went back, I did this performance, and everyone was like, ‘Oh, we were wrong.’ That really amused me.