Dua Lipa admits she felt humiliated by her viral 'Go Girl Give Us Nothing' meme
Dua Lipa got candid about her feelings toward an old performance of hers that was turned into a viral meme.
In 2018, the Dance the Night Away singer performed her song New Rules at the Brit Awards. This was met with criticisms on YouTube as users made comments about her "lack of energy" during the show, which then began the "Go Girl Give Us Nothing" meme used to tease artists and celebrities for unenergetic performances.
"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,'" Dua Lupa told The Guardian.
"Those things were hurtful. It was humiliating. I had to take myself off Twitter."
The 28-year-old artist added that performing and writing songs—something she really enjoyed—made her feel upset because people would "pick everything apart."
"In the public eye, I was figuring out who I was as an artist, as a performer. 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," she shared.
The singer added that she felt that humiliation for two years and was only vindicated in November 2019 when Don't Start Now came out.
"I went back, did that performance, and everyone was like, 'Oh, we were wrong.' I got a real kick out of that," she said.
Dropping her debut album in 2015, Dua Lipa has won seven Brit Awards and three Grammys. In 2024, she dropped her third album, Radical Optimism, with tracks including Training Session, Houdini, Illusion, and End of an Era.