Inside Dua Lipa’s incredible rise to stardom from working as a waitress to Glastonbury headliner with £30m fortune
POP star Dua Lipa has the world at her feet.
In less than a decade, she has gone from being a waitress in London’s Soho to one of the most in-demand stars on the planet — amassing a fortune of £30million and clocking up three Grammys and seven Brit Awards.
With close friends including designer Donatella Versace, Sir Elton John and supermodel Gigi Hadid, the daughter of refugees from Kosovo has transformed herself into the ultimate global It Girl.
And as befits a British superstar, she has an £8million mansion in affluent West Hampstead in North West London, boasting a swimming pool, home studio, and cinema.
Now she is on course to go to No1 this Friday with her third album Radical Optimism — her first since 2020’s Future Nostalgia, which turned her into a major superstar.
The new record has already given Dua another three Top Ten singles in the form of Houdini, Training Season, and Illusion, bringing her total to 16.
Not too shabby for someone who is still 15 months away from celebrating her 30th birthday.
Its release has ushered in the biggest summer of her career, which will include a massive headline slot at Glastonbury Festival next month.
The feat solidifies Dua’s spot in music history, following in the footsteps of the Rolling Stones, Adele and Beyonce.
Dua said of her milestone: “This is the pinnacle. For me, Glastonbury has always been the biggest dream.
“It’s been my barometer every time I go into the studio, when I write a song I love. It’s like, ‘How is this going to sound at Glastonbury? Is it going to work?’
‘Biggest show of career’
“It’s just always been on my dream board of something that I want to do. It’s the biggest show of my career.”
The set, expected to be attended by 100,000 music fans, will be a stark contrast to the last time she performed at the festival.
In 2017 she sang on the John Peel Stage — known for hosting up-and-coming artists — and was worried no one would even turn up.
She recalled: “It was just as I was about to go on and there really wasn’t anyone. And I was like, ‘Oh, f**k. No one’s going to come.’
“But I just went, ‘Do you know what? It doesn’t matter. I’m going to get out and I’m just going to perform and I’m going to have fun.’
“By the time that I went out, the whole thing was full and I jumped out and had the best time.”
At the weekend, Dua hosted and performed on one of US telly’s biggest shows, Saturday Night Live — becoming the first British star to do so since Harry Styles in 2019.
Born in London in 1995 to Kosovo-Albanian parents Anesa and Dukagjin Lipa, Dua grew up in the capital before returning to her parents’ homeland when she was 11.
Determined to follow her dream, Dua persuaded her mum and dad to let her return to the UK when she was just 15 years old.
She said: “I wanted to do music. As much as I loved living in Kosovo, it was a very different experience. I was living with a roommate and my parents knew her parents. My parents put a lot of trust in me so I really tried to be as good as possible.”
Dua worked a series of jobs in the UK, including as a guest list girl on the door of nightclubs, before finding a manager and landing a record deal.
But before earning fame, fortune and accolades, she had a tough ride following the release of her self-titled debut album.
She was criticised for her lacklustre dancing on stage and was mocked online with a comment that went viral, reading: “Go girl, give us nothing.”
Speaking to a newspaper about the jibes, she said: “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.’ Those things were hurtful. It was humiliating.
“I had to take myself off Twitter. The thing that made me the happiest — performing and writing songs — was also making me really upset because people were picking everything apart that I’d been working on, and I had to learn all that in front of everyone.
“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.”
However, she then underwent months of intensive dance rehearsals before her return in order to silence her critics and she now pulls off complex choreography during her stage shows.
At the 2019 Grammy Awards, she won two songs — Best Dance Recording for single Electricity and Best New Artist for explicit track IDGAF.
Two years later, she returned to the US music industry ceremony to pick up her third accolade — Best Pop Vocal Album — for her second album Future Nostalgia.
‘I was over the moon’
With three wins and ten nominations to her name, Dua has more Grammys than pop icons Britney Spears (one win from eight nominations) and Kylie Minogue (two wins from six nominations).
Even global music legend Cher has fewer, bagging just one from seven nominations.
Meanwhile, back on home soil, Dua has won seven Brit awards.
With such star power, it’s no wonder that the great and the good started lining up to record with Dua.
Miley Cyrus, 31, enlisted her for her 2020 single Prisoner, while the following year Sir Elton John, 77, snapped her up to create mega hit Cold Heart.
Madonna, the Queen of Pop herself, even gave her royal seal of approval by appearing on a remix of Dua’s smash hit Levitating in 2020, alongside rapper Missy Elliott.
Dua said of Madge’s involvement: “It was very much a manifestation thing. I was thinking out loud.
“She was so down. I was over the moon. I couldn’t believe that she wanted to do this record with me. I’m such a fan. It was really exciting.”
Not content in dominating the charts, Dua has turned herself into a global brand.
She currently has deals with luxury car giant Porsche — said to be worth seven figures — and YSL Beauty.
Dua has previously been snapped up by Jaguar, Evian, Mac Cosmetics and Versace, for whom she made her catwalk debut at Milan Fashion Week in September 2021.
Last year she co-designed a collection for the Italian fashion house alongside industry powerhouse Donatella Versace.
In a gushing statement at the time, Donatella said: “You are now both a Versace supermodel and a Versace super designer.
“We designed this collection with true friendship, love and joy at the heart of every piece.
“Your passion and vision have inspired me throughout this creative journey. I love you more than you can imagine.”
The deals have boosted Dua’s net worth to over £30million — which is set to jump even further in the coming 12 months thanks to a soon-to-be announced global tour.
In her last live shows, Dua played to 1.3 million fans around the globe over 91 dates — and the ten-month trek took just shy of £100million.
Dua appears keen to make her mark on the big screen too.
‘Proved them wrong’
In 2023, she made a cameo in the Oscar-winning film Barbie, playing a Mermaid Barbie alongside Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, as well as topping the charts with Dance The Night from the soundtrack.
Earlier this year, she starred alongside Henry Cavill in Apple TV’s spy thriller Argylle.
But don’t expect her to call time on creating chart hits.
She said at the Golden Globes: “At the moment, music is my priority. I love acting and it was fun — but music is first.”
Her love life has also kept her in the news after relationships with model Anwar Hadid, 24, and French director Romain Gavras, 42.
But she is now in a British power couple with rising screen star Callum Turner, 34.
With her album Radical Optimism on track to be another hit, Dua’s sights will now be set on her live shows.
Next month she will kick off a series of mini outdoor gigs across Europe before her landmark Glastonbury set on June 26, and a show at the Royal Albert Hall in October.
And she will be making sure there is no reason for people to criticise her performances.
She said: “Every time someone has doubted me, I’ve proved them wrong. And for me, I’m like, this is fuelling me.
“This is pushing me to be better, to work hard. And I get a real kick out of proving people wrong.”
