She has won armfuls of trophies at the Latin Grammy Awards and recorded with the likes of Billie Eilish and Bad Bunny. Ahead of a date at the O2, she talks about blending music styles, controversy and bomb threats
A few weeks ago, Rosalía was onstage at the Latin Grammys performing her global hit Despechá, flanked by hunky, scantily clad dancers like 2022’s answer to Blond Ambition-era Madonna. The 30-year-old Catalan singer and producer, born Rosalía Vila Tobella, had spent four years working her way to the centre of the Latin pop world. Now she headed into the audience and started grinding on her boyfriend, the Puerto Rican singer Rauw Alejandro. Within seconds, clips of the moment were all over TikTok. Without even trying, Rosalía had generated another viral moment, in a year already full of them.
Ten days later, she got a harrowing reminder of the downside to fame. “Yesterday, in Lisbon,” she tells me, “we had a bomb threat in the arena. There were a lot of police. I’m not gonna lie to you, I was scared, I was anxious – and I still had to go on stage.”
