Dua Lipa on her connection to Olivia Newton-John

Dua Lipa revealed her surprising connection to Olivia Newton-John in an interview with Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph on Saturday.

The English pop sensation said the Grease star, 71, was referenced during the writing process for track Physical, off her second album, Future Nostalgia.

‘Obviously when we wrote those words “let’s get physical”, we realised it was the perfect Olivia Newton-John reference,’ she told the publication.   

Dua collaborated with Sarah Hudson, Clarence Coffee Jr and Jason Evigan, on the highly-anticipated Future Nostalgia.

‘I was in the studio with Jason and Sarah and Coffee who I write with a lot and we were in the mood to write something fun and crazy,’ Dua said. 

The Don’t Start Now artist added of the Olivia reference: ‘It would be epic for her to hear it. 

‘One of the cool things about music is how it can inspire you to learn about other music, where inspiration comes from.’  

Dua burst onto the scene with her 2017 self-titled debut album. 

Her 2017 single New Rules has racked up over one billion streams on Spotify, while the video for 2017’s IDGAF has amassed half a billion views on YouTube. 

Dua, who is dating male model Anwar Hadid, spoke about the need for women, regardless of industry, to support one another, in Vogue Australia’s April 2020 issue.

It’s important to me to show unity between women. We should be seeing more girls, more diversity, more togetherness,’ she said.

‘For so long, people have pitted women being against each other. That’s not how it should be,’ Dua added.

She also revealed the downside of fame – particularly negative comments on social media.  

Dua explained how while she always considered social media to be fun, it became ‘difficult’ towards the end of her campaign, for her debut, self-titled album.

‘The more fun things I had to do, or the bigger things got, there would be opinions and negativity and more voices… I didn’t feel supported,’ she said.