Dua Lipa made an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Thursday evening for an extended interview, during which she discussed everything from her upcoming Future Nostalgia tour to her new Service95 newsletter — and how she once answered a FaceTime call from Elton John while dressed in only a bikini and a cowboy hat.
Colbert was also asked a highly personal and thoughtful question about the impact of his Catholic faith on his comedy by the British pop diva. She says she’s been honing her interviewing skills as she’s worked on the launch of Service95 and her “At Your Service” podcast.
“I’m really enjoying interviewing people, I really am,” Lipa says. “And I really love the research element about it and learning about people.”
Lipa, dubbed “the breakout pop star of the pandemic era” by Rolling Stone, recorded her critically praised sophomore album Future Nostalgia during the early days of COVID lockdowns and limitations, which she says helped fans to connect with the songs in a more meaningful way.
“With so much uncertainty and everything going on, I was like, ‘You know, maybe now is the time to release this album.’ And, I’m really happy that I did,” she says. “I have this whole philosophy that, up until the point the music gets released, it belongs to me. Once it’s out, it’s no longer is mine…People’s reaction, having been that the way that it was, was just mindblowing. It was beyond anything that I could have ever hoped for, and maybe that was actually the fate that the album was actually meant to have.”
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The “Levitating” singer also revealed how she came to be a part of Elton John’s 2021 remote collaboration “Cold Heart,” which includes interpolations of John’s 1989 ballad “Sacrifice,” his 1972 smash “Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going To Be a Long, Long Time),” 1983’s “Kiss the Bride,” and 1976’s “Where’s the Shoorah?”
“I was hanging out by the pool before going to do some writing, and all of a sudden my phone rings, and it’s a FaceTime from Elton and his husband, David — casual,” she said jokingly.
“I feel like I manifested this, in a way,” she explains of the collaboration. “‘Rocket Man’ is my driving song, it’s my shower song, it’s my song I sing along to myself…When I got asked to sing that part, I was like, ‘OK, it was just meant to be.’”
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Future Nostalgia’s long-awaited world tour will commence off Feb. 9 in Miami and conclude Nov. 16 in Perth, Australia. Lipa advises Colbert’s audience to have high expectations for the shows.
“I’ve done a lot of audience research, and so I feel like I know what songs people like,” she said.
