Dua Lipa‘s been promoting her new album, Radical Optimism, with a lot of videos and photos of her in and under the water, but believe it or not, none of this imagery has anything to do with the fact that she played Mermaid Barbie in the Barbie movie last year.
The cover of the album shows her standing in an ocean with a shark approaching, and in the album trailer, there’s video of her swimming underwater. She also posted photos of herself swimming underwater with the caption, “Sometimes you gotta be in deep waters to find yourself.”
Speaking to Rolling Stone about whether or not all this watery stuff is a call back to Barbie, Dua says, “No, but I feel like I’m never going to let go of these mermaid allegations, it seems!”
“I just love to be underwater. That wasn’t the inspo, but I love that it all trickled into it together, all these different parts of me and my journey that have brought me to this point,” she adds. “If that’s mermaid Barbie, then so be it!”
Fans also wonder if the album cover is a reference to the fact that Harry Houdini — the legendary magician who inspired the title of her hit “Houdini” — once had plans to fight a shark. Nope, says Dua.
“It actually wasn’t intentional,” she explains. “I do love the little connections that all the fans make because, to be honest, it sometimes surprises me.”
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