Glastonbury viewers accuse Dua Lipa of miming after BBC broadcast
Dua Lipa performs 'Levitating' during Glastonbury headline set
Glastonbury 2024 viewers are falsely accusing Dua Lipa of miming her headline set after an issue with the BBC’s broadcast.
The British pop star was the first headliner of this year’s festival, impressing the crowd with her Pyramid Stage set on Friday night (Friday 28 June) at Worthy Farm.
Dua Lipa’s performance, which The Independent hailed as “more than mere pop spectacle” followed an acclaimed, yet overcrowded, Sugababes set as well as performances from an eclectic lineup including Olivia Dean, Paul Heaton and LCD Soundsystem.
As Dua Lipa performed songs including “Training Season”, “New Rules” and “Levitating”, many viewers watching her set from their sofas at home accused the singer of miming her vocals – a claim that has been roundly denounced.
“I might be wrong but it looks like Dua Lipa is miming on #Glastonbury just looks & sounds too polished to be live,” one viewer complained on X/Twitter, with another adding: “Dua Lipa – either she’s miming or they’ve got the sound mix horribly wrong. It just sounds off.”
It seems the reason that people believe Dua Lipa wasn’t singing live is due to a lip-sync delay, which occurred during BBC’s broadcast of the performance on some services.
Viewers urged the BBC to “sort the sound out”, and said that switching from BBC on Sky to Freeview fixed the issue, with one person writing: “The Dua Lipa miming accusations may not be helped by the broadcast. BBC on Sky appears to have lip-sync issues. Just switched back to Freeview and that’s gone.”
Others suggested that peoples’ assumption that the singer was miming might have also been caused by the fact she was singing live over a track that featured pre-recorded backing vocals.
One person stated: “No Dua Lipa is not miming. Majority of the main vocal parts are quite clearly live. She’s smashing it and everyone on stage look like they’re having the time of their lives.”
Another added: “It p***es me off that successful female musicians always get accused of miming. Happening to Dua Lipa tonight, happened to Lorde, happened to Billie Eilish. It’s bulls***. Some people just really are that damn good.”
The Independent has contacted the BBC for comment.
This year’s two other headline acts are Coldplay and SZA, which will occur on Saturday (29 June) and Sunday (30 June).
Follow all the Glastonbury updates as they happen in our live coverage of the festival here.