Singer Belinda Carlisle has criticised pop star Dua Lipa for her “sexualised” performances, branding them “embarrassing”.
The musician, who rose to fame as part of the new wave band The Go-Go’s before achieving mainstream success with her solo hit “Heaven Is a Place on Earth”, disagreed that performances by “young women” in the music industry are “empowering”.
“These days, young women in the music industry are just so sexualised. Like, what happened?” she told The i Paper. “I don’t get it. It’s not empowering – it’s embarrassing,:
“Yes, you will get attention, but not the right kind, and down the line you are going to look back and say: ‘Wish I hadn’t done that.’”
Carlisle, 66, then singled out “Levitating” singer Dua Lipa, 30, stating: “I mean: Dua Lipa? It’s shocking! She’s so talented. She doesn’t need to do that.”
Lipa, known for chart-topping songs including “New Rules” and “Don’t Start Now”, is often praised for her highly energetic shows, including an acclaimed Glastonbury headline set in 2024.
Her live performances have undergone an evident transformation after she was ridiculed for her “wooden” performances early in her career.
The singer subsequently added choreographer Charm La’Donna and dance captain Sharon June to her team and put together an impressively physical performance at the 2024 Grammys to prove haters wrong.
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This June, after watching Lipa’s show at London’s Wembley Stadium, The Independent’s Ellie Muir said it was “hard to believe the pop star’s onstage prowess was ever the subject of online ridicule”.
“Her stage presence [is] irrefutable as she commands the crowd into silence with a single swish of her hair,” she wrote. “The singer wears a diamanté-encrusted leotard as she struts down the catwalk.”
Lipa has previously spoken out about sexism in the music industry and how women struggle to gain recognition in contrast to their male counterparts.
A year after the release of her first album in 2017, she told GQ: “For a female artist, it takes a lot more to be taken seriously if you're not sat down at a piano or with a guitar.”
Lipa has since won seven Brit Awards, including British Breakthrough Act and British Female Solo Artist in 2018, British Female Solo Artist and British Album of the Year for Future Nostalgia in 2021 and Best Pop Act in 2024, as well as three Grammy awards.
In June 2025, Lipa’s contemporary Sabrina Carpenter was criticised for a sexualised album cover that saw the singer, 26, on her hands and knees, while an anonymous figure in a suit holds her by her hair.
Elsewhere in the i interview, Carlisle, who has sold over seven million records worldwide as part of the Go-Go’s, suggested that her punk image protected her from misogyny early on in her career.
“No man ever messed with a Go-Go,” she said. “We were like a five headed monster.”
Carlisle went on to have a successful solo career with hits including “Mad About You”, “Circle in the Sand”, “Leave a Light On”, and “I Get Weak”. But it’s “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” that is considered her signature tune.
Carlisle and the Go-Go’s were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021.
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