During Dua Lipa’s visit to Billboard‘s Pop Shop Podcast earlier this week, she spoke at length about why supporting the LGBTQ community is so important for her.
The “New Rules” singer’s advocacy for the LGBTQ community has been the cause of much celebration among her fanbase. From waving a Pride flag at her concerts to standing by LGBTQ Chinese fans who were forcibly escorted out of her shows, Lipa has taken great lengths to rally alongside her queer fanbase.
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“I believe in equality and everyone having the same opportunities and there being a lot more acceptance in the world,” she told the Pop Shop Podcast. “You know, being from London, sometimes you live in your little bubble where there’s so much diversity and so much acceptance and you don’t really realize that it’s not like that in every other part in the world, so you feel like because you’re given this platform, you have a duty to really speak up and speak out about the things that are important.”
Most recently, Lipa took to her outsized platform to campaign against far-right Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, who has drawn ire for his homophobic views. While Bolsonaro is still in the presidential election, after advancing to a runoff election Monday with 46 percent of the vote, he didn’t win outright as some expected. Lipa re-posted a New York Times op-ed on Twitter criticizing the presidential front-runner in September with the hashtag “#EleNão,” which loosely translates to “not him” in Portugese.
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“There were some Brazilian fans and people that were upset that I had my own say about Brazilian politics, which, I guess, to some extent people were like, ‘You’re not from Brazil, why are you talking about this?’ But I care a lot about my fans and I care a lot about everything that has happened in the world,” she explains. “I feel like it’s important to the people who follow you and support you to know exactly what they’re doing and know the importance of voting and know the importance of taking their future into their own hands, and these are just things that I strongly believe in and I’ve been given this platform so I’m going to use it for that.”
Listen to Billboard‘s Pop Shop Podcast below.