Dua Lipa stopped The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Thursday evening for a long interview where she talked all about her next nostalgia for the future tour, her new Service95 newsletter — and how she once answered a FaceTime call from Elton John while wearing nothing but a bikini and a cowboy hat.
The British pop singer even turned the tables on Colbert, asking him a deeply personal and thoughtful question about the impact of his Catholic faith on his comedy. Interviewing, she says, is a skill she developed while working on the rollout of Service95 and its “At Your Service” podcast.
“I really like interviewing people, really,” Lipa says. “And I really like the research element to this and people learning.”
Lipa, who rolling stone named “the pop star of the pandemic era”, released her critically acclaimed second album nostalgia for the future at the start of the Covid lockdowns and restrictions – which the singer believes has allowed fans to connect with music on a deeper and more meaningful level.
“With so much uncertainty and everything going on, I thought, ‘You know, maybe it’s time to put this album out.’ And I’m really glad I did,” she says. “I have this whole philosophy that until the time the music comes out, it’s mine. Once it’s out, it’s not mine anymore… The reaction of people, having been like that, was just mind blowing. It was beyond anything I could have hoped for, and maybe that was actually the fate the album was meant to have.
The “Levitating” singer also shared the story of how she was asked to take part in “Cold Heart,” her 2021 remote collaboration with Elton John, which features tweens of John’s ballad “Sacrifice” in 1989, his 1972 hit “Rocket Man (I Think It’s Gonna Be Long, Really Long), 1983’s “Kiss the Bride” and 1976’s “Where’s the Shoorah?”
“I was hanging out by the pool before I went to write, and all of a sudden my phone rings, and it’s a FaceTime of Elton and her husband, David — laid back,” she jokes.
“I feel like I manifested that, in a way,” she explains of the collaboration. “‘Rocket Man’ is my driving song, this is my shower song, this is my song that I sing to myself… When I was asked to sing this part, I was like, ‘OK , it was just meant to be.
The long postponed nostalgia for the future The world tour kicks off February 9 in Miami and ends November 16 in Perth, Australia. Lipa says Colbert fans should come to the shows with high expectations.
“I did a lot of audience research, so I feel like I know what songs people like,” she explains.